Without a doubt, the Sans Souci project is a big one, indeed. The construction of hotels, a convention center, apartments and parks on the 496,000 square meter section will cover both the east and west banks of the Ozama River as it meets the Caribbean Sea.
As told by Lisandro Macarrulla, president of Inversiones Turisticas Sans Souci, the company promoting the project, the cruise ships and the hotels will bring a million tourists to the city of Santo Domingo. At the present time, according to the Hoy newspaper, the Dominican Republic receives around 2.5 million visitors each year.
The company represented by Macarrulla will invest US$28 million over the next three years and the complete project will need US$400 million in investments. Part of the overall project will include the cleaning up of the Ozama River basin in order to make it more attractive to visitors. Estimates indicate that perhaps as many as 20,000 jobs will be created when the project nears completion, and, together with the other operations over US$4.0 billion in taxes will be produced.
Macarrulla, speaking to reporters as part of the program to get the Congress to approve the sale of the lands required for the project, said that if they did not get the approval of the Congress the investors would desist in their efforts and the area would remain stagnant. The sale includes 200,000 square meters currently occupied by the Navy and the Naval School in Sans Souci.
The luncheon was attended by members of the media, including radio and television as well as the print media and one of the details that were given out was the fact that the lands had been assessed and their assessed value was doubled in the offer made by the investors. Ironically, Pesident Fernandez has already given the first shovel full of dirt for the project, last June.
The government handpicked this company to carry out the project.