The Playa Grande project is and will continue to bring interest, jobs and more money to the local economies of Rio San Juan and Cabrera. But the project is still in its relative infancy so figure this will be a 3-5 year build out to have a measurable economic impact. For longer term investors it is good but for "buy and flip" you would be wasting your time and money.
The long promised project at Cristal Beach still remains in stasis. When asked, the main investor did comment that he was going forward with the project (70+ condos at the end of Orchid Bay Beach) but was waiting for Playa Grande to get further along. A chicken and an egg situation, I guess.
Los Cabos, a development inside of Cabrera of a 140,000m2 "neighborhood" is proceeding but sales are sluggish. The homes are supposed to be quite nice yet not overly expensive and all powered by natural gas. Very advanced but only time will tell if things deviate from the planned course. Much will depend upon sales, if they pick up then it will be very good. Otherwise, experience tells me, shortcuts will be taken resulting in an embarrassing mixture of old and new, neither working well. But I have faith in this project as the primary investor seems very committed to it.
A few years ago a large investment was made in and around the Playa Diamonte area when some investors from the US bought everything left, right and in the back of the beach. Supposed to be a development on the order of Orchid Bay (high end homes) to be designed by Sara Garcia (a famous Dominican architect and co-owner of Casa Colonial), including another boutique hotel.
The Cliffs in Rio San Juan, nearest to Playa Grande, seem to have run dry. They started, put up the billboards and rumors have it that they are now embattled in lawsuits with the primary money man pulling out. I don't know the facts but there development there definitely seems to have croaked, at least for the time being.
So real estate in the Cabrera/Rio San Juan area seems to be in a holding pattern waiting to see how far Playa Grande will develop and see what that triggers for other developers. Smaller sales still occur, of course, but nothing real interesting on that front.
For infrastructure, the Cabrera mayor is paving everything in town including the malecon. That is helping, of course, but we will have to wait and see what it does as far as new investments in the area goes.
Electricity is supposed to be coming soon to help the Playa Grande area and will be extended to Cabrera. Actually, I've heard two rumors on this but the basis, that 24/7 electrical power is coming, seems to be the common thread. One rumor has it coming along the north coast from Puerto Plata; I find this one sketchy because the nearest substation is in Sosua so that would be one heck of a lot of wire to get it here. The other rumor has it coming from San Francisco de Macoris through the substation in Payita (sp?); this makes more sense but it would still be about 15km of high tension wire to get to Cabrera. But, whichever it is, it's due to come within the next 3-5 years as someone (maybe Playa Grande) signed up for the substation rights (that was in the news).
For water, INAPA abandoned a large plan to create a new cisterna on the west side of Cabrera. I don't know why but my connections in the capital indicate it was probably political. Hopefully it will be cranked up again. Water is going to be one of the biggest problems in this area. Rio San Juan already is very dry as opposed to what it's name would imply. Cabrera regularly goes without water in the hot summers for a few days at a time.
Unless INAPA gets on top of proper water distribution I suspect we will have a serious problem in Cabrera when Los Cabos and Cristal Beach get going.
That's all for now...