Cabrera Area New Projects/ future Goverment Plans for the area?

oceanspear

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Does anyone Knows about any new projects coming to the Cabrera area?

any goverment projects to jumpstart the Tourism sector in the Cabrera area?

what are the future prospects for new businesses growth in the next 5 years?

La entrada, Baoba del Pinal area growth?

What about real estate values? crime? Banking? situation in Playa Grande?

I bet mr. Castellamonte has some insight!!

Please help.
 

william webster

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Playa Grande Club & Reserve - Dominican Republic is a place to start.... the Aman Group project.
Additionally, there is a private project going in adjacent to this one and behind the beach.

http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/42836/... a bit more info

These are big projects - very big, hundreds of millions

The President came to the ribbon cutting of both and new pavement appeared miraculously in the vicinity.

Crime seems less than the tourist areas (touch wood)

Just use the search here for 'Playa Grande' and you'll get more.

As The new projects get vertical people will understand this is for real and hopefully, prices will escalate.

Big ?? is whether the local community will benefit from any of this.... local jobs, but maybe not local restaurants, etc.
At the end of the day, there may be little reason to leave the property.

Most banks are represented in Cabrera... its a small place, everybody knoiws everybody's business.

All in all, we like it there
 
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Castellamonte

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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...
 

Abuela

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Los Cabos looks like an overly ambitious project for the area its in. Who are the developers? Raffling cheap cars to urge early sales seems to be a cheesy promotion.
 

william webster

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There are some reasons why many people might put Cabrera at the bottom of their list...
No in-town beach......... a dearth of eateries.....all of which translates for some to a lack of razzle dazzle.

The 'fast lane' it ain't.....

But it suits some........
 
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The ex-pats I know who live in Cabrera seem to love it. I want to go there on my next trip if I can find a hotel that's in the backpacker price range.
 

oceanspear

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What about the local economy? internet acces , reliability of the electric grid, police presence and security in general, and what about Playa la Boca and Baoba del Pinal?
Is it an aging graying area? or is there plenty of youth?
watersports? how is the fishing? diving?
 

Castellamonte

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Los Cabos looks like an overly ambitious project for the area its in. Who are the developers? Raffling cheap cars to urge early sales seems to be a cheesy promotion.

The main money guy behind Los Cabos is Mr. Jozef Novak, an investor/retiree from Europe who lives in Orchid Bay. He is a very smart guy and a very nice guy. But I'll admit his marketing concept with the cars seemed a bit whacky when I heard it. Likely people have probably tried stranger things in this country so only time will tell if it made a positive difference to anyone but the car dealer who sold all the cars to him.

I suspect he has sufficient staying power to see to it that Los Cabos is completely correctly but it is an ambitious project as the target audience is either Dominican (who have no money) or ex-pats (who probably won't like living in town).
 

Castellamonte

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What about the local economy? internet acces , reliability of the electric grid, police presence and security in general, and what about Playa la Boca and Baoba del Pinal?
Is it an aging graying area? or is there plenty of youth?
watersports? how is the fishing? diving?

The local economy here is primarily driven by agriculture, not tourism as would be the same in some other north coast communities. I feel if there were a middle class in the Dominican Republic, Cabrera would be as close as you could get. The economy seems reasonably strong and resilient to me (in a Dominican way).

Electricity I answered before. It's spotty but generally available 12+ hours per day at this point.

Internet is slower, 768Kb hard line or 3G wireless.

Police are ... here but ... I don't tend to rely upon them since general security seems to be pretty good. I hear of some thefts in town but they seem to be crimes of opportunity (someone left the pasola unlocked) as opposed to organized.

Baoba/Boca areas are still very under-developed, pristine areas. Gorgeous, tho, simply gorgeous.

I'd say there is a mixture of us old farts and the young bucks but the old farts do outnumber the youngsters. This is a quiet community and most of the younger crowd enjoy the pulse-pounding beat of Cabarete/Sosua over Cabrera. The city has only a few "party places" that are mostly filled with the Dominicans who live here.

Any business here in Cabrera that is not designed to attract and retain the local Dominican as a customer will very likely fail.
 

Castellamonte

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How about Sea Tree Estates in Abreu or is it not considered Cabrera area

SeaTree is a secure, gated community such as Orchid Bay which I also didn't mention much. There is no development happening there although some lots have been sold and others are for sale. It is landscaped extremely well, gorgeous even, but with only one home developed I guess it makes sense. That one home (Cantamar Villa) was developed 5+ years ago, I believe.
 

Castellamonte

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Hotel La Catalina (Hotel La Catalina - Cabrera, North Coast Dominican Republic Hotel Resort) is a great spot but there is also Hotel Mirador (https://www.facebook.com/elmirador.cabrera) which is more economically priced but very clean and seems to get nice reviews from people I know who have stayed there.

Thanks. It's a start, but I'm looking more like something like Rocky's in Sosua before the upgrades. A full sized bed with good pillows, a ceiling fan and maybe a dorm fridge. Hot water is nice, but I can do without. Maybe the days of $25/night hotels are over. I'd like to find something around $50/night. I certainly don't need a TV in the room or AC. Some ex-pat bar with a couple of sleeper rooms connected to it would be ideal.

Is there any kind of ex-pat business directory or list for Cabrera? I know of your place, Chico's, and Manny's, but that's it.
 

Castellamonte

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william webster

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Those cheaper hotels are very acceptable and right on the ocean for nice breeze.

I can't comment on the electric - I'm solar.
Internet... I'm on the airwaves so can't answer

Police.... they've shot a couple the robbers they've apprehended....
Crime slows down somewhat after that.

As said above, just petty crime.... in a small community like this, too many people know everybody to allow an organized crime spree.
Many are related or have a friend/relative who works here/there....

Generally, lower crime than some other places.