In Panama, a Home in the Mountains

December 2, 2007

By KEVIN BRASS

ALTOS DE CERRO AZUL, Panama
The terrace of Rachelle and Ben Smith’s home is one of the few places on earth with views of both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. On clear days, they sit there and watch the ships line up to enter the Panama Canal.

The area is also something of a bird paradise. Ornithologists regularly lead tours through the valleys, hoping for glimpses of the toucans, migratory birds and rare hummingbirds that regularly visit the treetops in the Smiths’ backyard. “The rope across there is for the monkeys,” Mr. Smith said, pointing to ropes strung through the tall pines around the house, near platforms covered with sliced bananas and bird feed.

The couple paid $150,000 in March 2006 for their three-bedroom, three-bath home. The house is situated on two acres of land, and it is a little more than an hour’s drive from Panama City.
In 2003, after Mr. Smith — who goes by “Smitty” — sold his plumbing business in Jacksonville, Fla., the couple spent three years living on a 38-foot sailboat called the Seawolf. But two years ago, while they were visiting relatives in the United States, their boat was destroyed by Hurricane Wilma.

Their initial search for a new home focused on the Caribbean and Costa Rica. But then they met Marie Farrell, a Panama native and an agent with ReMax in the Jacksonville area.

Fast-growing Panama is generally considered an easy place for foreigners to buy property, compared with other countries. English is commonly spoken, the United States dollar is the accepted currency, there are no restrictions on owning land in most areas and the government offers a long list of friendly discounts for pensionados, expatriates who have settled in Panama.
For the Smiths, Panama had an extra appeal — no hurricanes. “We were sick and tired of running from hurricanes,” said Mrs. Smith, 52.

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Investment propels a real estate boom for Panama

Stability and a steady growth rate are helping to transform this regional hub.
By Sara Miller Llana Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

November 26, 2007

Panama City - The hilltop view overlooking the former Howard US Air Force Base in Panama says it all. The vacant barracks will be the site of a $10 billion minicity slated to be the size of Central London. Just beyond the hills, the Panama Canal is undergoing a $5 billion expansion, and in the background cranes hang over new skyscrapers that seem to rise every week.
Panama, it seems, is in its prime.

Once overlooked as nothing but a canal, this tiny Central American nation of 3 million is attracting residents, businesses, and investors the world over. Some are seeking a haven from political situations in the region. Others are jumping on what they see as one of the best investments around. But as the government markets itself as the Latin American lodestone, many caution that the city is growing too quickly out of its own infrastructure.

"We are the geographic hub of the Americas," says Ivan Carlucci, the president of the Panamanian Association of Real Estate Brokers and Developers, adding that 11,000 new units will come online this year. He boasts that 99 percent have already sold. Some say that speculators have fueled the boom, but Mr. Carlucci says he expects the real-estate market to maintain its momentum because of other large infrastructure and industrial projects throughout the country. "We will be sustained by all the other aspects."

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A day in Panama City— brand-new skyscrapers, and a colonial quarter

Nov. 13, 2007, 12:56PM
By ARTHUR FROMMER King Features

Still reeling from the fact that our Panama City hotel had a full-scale casino of roulette wheels, blackjack dealers, craps tables and slots (nothing had prepared us for Panama's Las Vegas-style gambling), Roberta and I headed for our first morning in town to the city's outstanding quarter of colonial gems, the Casco Viejo district of 17th-century Spanish charm.

Preserved as the conquistadors left it, Casco Viejo vies with Old Havana and Old San Juan in authenticity — but it is beginning to leave the others behind with the restored beauty of its courtyards, and the sparkling tiles and marble that line many of the cafes, restaurants and shops that occupy these historic structures. Just as Panama City's downtown across the bay is transforming itself into a totally unexpected, skyscraper-packed Hong Kong, Casco Viejo is in the process of being restored into the most tastefully attractive area of the city.

Here the district is studded with fun gift shops (potholders and eyeglass containers in the strongly colorful designs — "molas" — of Panama's indigenous Indians, dolls in the ruffled long skirts of Panama's 19th-century women, feather-light Panama hats), the cafes and restaurants are gracious and courtly, the sight of the city's skyline across the water is stunning, the Presidential Palace (currently housing the Honorable Martin Torrijos) is the center of power and is surrounded by military — but friendly — guards, and the chief sightseeing attraction is the Museo del Canal Interoceanico (the museum that relates the history of the Panama Canal — although its inscriptions are in Spanish only, its many visual aids and movies are understood easily). The Canal museum is an indispensable stop, a necessary prelude to your visit to the Miraflores Locks later in the day.

After a $30 lunch for the two of us (including appetizers, main course, two Panama beers and dessert) at the elegant Mostaza Restaurant, we took a cab to the Miraflores Visitors' Center on the outskirts of town for a look at the actual workings of the canal. As we stood on a high outdoor balcony overlooking the Miraflores Locks, an announcer speaking over a loudspeaker in Spanish, English and French explained the intricate workings that lifts these giant vessels to different levels of the artificial waterway. Asian sailors stood on the deck of one enormous container ship, looking up at us tourists as we gazed at them and their ship.

From Miraflores, we visited not one but two successive marketplaces of Panama City, and bought gifts for relatives back home at prices that were a quarter the levels charged in the lobby gift shop of our hotel. The tourism of Panama is centered not simply in Panama City, but to a far greater extent in the picture-perfect, uncrowded beaches (with several large resorts) just outside Panama City, and in the renowned San Blas Islands, Pearl Islands and Bocas del Toro offshore islands, as well as on the Gulf of Chiriqui. It's found in the mountain stretches of Boquete, housing rain forests, coffee plantations, and Embera and Kuna Indians — a superb setting for tourism.

Just as Americans began flocking to Costa Rica a decade ago, they're now going to what might become the new hot spot of Central America, Panama. You should consider a trip.

If You Build it They Will Come...

Panama Canal expansion to begin August - official
BALBOA, Panama, June 6 (Reuters) -

The first stage of a $5.25 billion expansion of the Panama Canal should begin ahead of schedule by the end of August, a top canal official said on Wednesday. Dredging works at the southern mouth of the canal on the Pacific will start in August instead of October as previously announced, Panama Canal Authority deputy administrator Jose Barrios said. The first onshore excavation works are scheduled to begin before the end of calendar 2007, Barrios told Reuters in an interview. Panama is aiming to build a third lane of locks to increase the canal's capacity and allow larger ships to travel between the Pacific and Caribbean. It hopes to have the third lane operational in time for the canal's centennial in 2014. The bidding specifications for the dredging would be ready next month, slightly late, Barrios said, but the bidding process would be short. "Even if we don't get (the specifications) on time we are going to get ahead of schedule," he said. He said bidding terms for the excavation work had been published and that more firms than expected had expressed an interest in the tender.

The excavation project involves removing 8 million cubic meters of soil and rock where a the new lane will skirt around the current Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks at 24 meters above sea level.

That work will begin after Panama's fiscal new year in October.
Barrios forecast strong growth in the canal's cargo tonnage, but smaller growth in the number of ships passing through.

For fiscal 2007, Barrios estimated the waterway would carry 320 million tonnes of cargo, an increase of 10.3 percent from earlier estimates.

Northbound container traffic from Asia is seen as the main thrust behind the rise in tonnage, although an increase in southbound grain cargo has also been noticed, Barrios said.
For fiscal 2008, he said the canal's "conservative" projection is for cargo flows to increase 6 million tonnes or 1.9 percent.

Fatal Attraction-Building and Infrastructure

Panama, Sunday 25 of March of 2007

Panama will attract thousands of Latin investors in the next years.The metamorphosis of the city the real estate development raises a new urgent challenge of urban ordering for the authorities. For the next years it will have to invest about 2 billion dollars in improvements to the infrastructure. Víctor D. Torres vdagoberto@prensa.com

All species of the planet have a special relation with its immediate habitat. From the evolution of the cities, the human beings have identified themselves with their metropolitan surroundings, developing a complex symbiosis in which the city molds its inhabitants as much as they themselves change the large city. A booming real estate sector, Panama faces the challenges simultaneously to improve the territorial ordering that it looks for to solve the deficient road infrastructure and of basic services.

"We must define the city of the future towards year 2019 and that we cannot obtain it if there is no consensus between all the sectors", Juan Carlos Navarro, mayor of the district of Panama, during the forum "Panama 500" that was celebrated last week. But pretensions of country to turn city cosmopolitan as the emergent large cities of Singapur or Dubai are threatened the measurement that continues the rate of disordered growth, with streets in badly shape, a chaotic and obsolete massive transport. "We must take advantage of the experiences other countries and to make of Panama a city with much development, ordered for people", said the minister of House (MIVI) Balbina Herrera.

Boom without precedent In the last years, the real estate impact in Panama has been accelerated. In 2006, the construction registered the highest growth of any economic segment of the internal sector, raising 17,4% 665,7 million dollars. According to the Panamanian Association of Brokers and Promoters of Real estate, the real estate investment went off 25% to 2 thousand 775 million dollars. "the real estate development does not have precedents and the foreign and local investment will continue growing in the next years", assured architect Ignacio Mallol, who does not share the opinion of which the city has grown in disorder. "All my life have constructed with an urban planning of the Ministry of House". But all do not agree. Alliance Pro City was founded on 2006 indeed to express the citizen frustrations by the excesses of the construction. "quality of life with the dangerous saturation of our cities is destroyed", wrote one of its founders, architect Rodrigo Mejía-Andrión.

At least 100 buildings of more than 20 floors are programmed to be constructed in the next years in different points from the city and some already they are in execution, according to the company Prima Panama. Almost 11 thousand apartments will be available, mainly in Balboa Ave., Costa del Este and Punta Pacifica. The hundreds of projects of residential houses are added that are constructed in beach and mountain areas.

Fatal Attraction
The political problems in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador continue favoring immigration towards Panama. In next the four years it is hoped that thousands of Latin American buy more properties in the country, added to thousands of baby boomers of approximately 80 million that will look for second residences in the region. The migratory restrictions imposed by the United States for foreigners also have overturned the glance towards the country, fortified with the regional connections of hub of the Américas de Copa Airlines.

Poor infrastructure But, according to the MIVI, in the next years at least 2 billion dollars will be needed to renovate the systems of sewage system, potable water and electricity. "the State is not removing the greater benefit from the investment", said Raisa Banfield, member of Alliance Pro City. "it is leaving investors use as the existing infrastructure that was designed and planned in the ´50s". Banfield indicates the changes allowed in the zonifications, the gift of the land capital gain and the lack of reinvestment of the gain of the proprietors in infrastructure improvements.

Jaime Salas, municipal engineer of the district of Panama, thinks that it is the best moment to solve the infrastructure problem, which are backdated. There are samples of what the govt have been doing. The projects of cleaning of the bay of Panama, the coastal tape, the urban transport, the Panama-Colon highway and the systems of potable water conduction, are passages in the correct direction.