real estate

Los Faros developer changes plans

Ana Rentería/LA PRENSA

reconstruction project992959

The Spanish real estate developer Grupo Mall has changed the plans for its flagship project in Latin America, Los Faros de Panamá, according to the company's president, Julio Noval.

The original plans called for the construction of three towers: a central tower with nearly 800 luxury flats and a five-star hotel, and two lateral towers with nearly 500 luxury residences each. Now the company wants the two lateral towers to be hotels, and it has scrapped its plans for a hotel in the central tower in order to make more room for homes and offices.

The company is currently negotiating with top hotel chains worldwide.

The size of the hotels will depend on the chains that manage them. Grupo Mall hopes that the floors not occupied by the hotels can be developed as time-share properties or condo-hotel units whose owners could choose to assign them to the hotels as desired.

The characteristics of the casino planned for the complex would also be determined by the group that manages the hotels.

The shortage of hotel rooms in Panama was the principal reason for the change, said Noval. "Considering the great demand for hotels, we opted for the possibility of making two instead of one. Locating them in the lateral towers maintains an equilibrium."

The original plans called for the construction of nearly 1,800 residential units. Noval does not think that number will be drastically reduced. "It depends on the number of rooms the hotels have. But you also have to take into account the addition of homes in the central tower," he said.

With respect to the economic benefits, Noval remarked that "We are not going to lower our profitability. The hotels will have to accept that the margins we've foreseen will not be reduced. If not, we will build residences, which sell very well.