May 2008

Issue: 2008 - 3

Nica - Newsletter

Belize Update

• ECI planning condominium in Belize

Belize Update

ECI planning condominium in Belize

Company also eyes Argentina, Panama, Costa Rica

Pittsburgh Business Times - by Tim Schooley

ECI Development Ltd., a Pittsburgh-rooted resort development firm with two facilities in Central America, is launching a new project in Belize.

After launching an ambitious plan to develop a 2500-acre resort community on the west coast of Nicaragua and acquiring an oceanfront swath of property in Costa Rica two years ago, the company is now pursuing a $20 million-plus condominium community called Grand Bayman in English-speaking Belize.

"Belize is very strategic," said Michael Cobb, CEO of ECI and a native of Butler County. "If I can provide what the consumers want, then I don't have to sell anybody anything."

ECI has more than 60 investors, many of which are based in the Pittsburgh area.

For the Grand Bayman project, Cobb and his former Allegheny College roommate, Sewickley-based lawyer Joel Nagel, are combining the 1-acre beachfront property they already own with a 5.5-acre property behind it.

The initial 1-acre tract was merged into the 5.5-acre parcel, which already includes a swimming pool and private club facilities.

ECI acquired 71 percent of the combined property in what was largely a private stock trade for real estate with an estimated value of $4.5 million.

ECI is working to develop more than 200 condominiums on the property, which is located close to the resort town of San Pedro. The development includes a new 60-unit condominium hotel on the beachfront parcel that will replace the 22-unit condominium development there now.

As with Gran Pacifica, the company's Nicaraguan development, the Grand Bayman project is being designed by Urban Design Associates, based in Downtown Pittsburgh, which has been planning the resort development as a new urbanist community expected to tuck commercial and public space into a residential framework.

Don Kaliszewski, a principal of UDA who worked on the Belize project, said he studied the British colonial development patterns in Belize City to establish the design.

"This will definitely be the first new urban plan there," he said. "Belize really is kind of an untapped market for new development, especially something that's not a traditional resort development."

ECI expects the Belize development will take five years to complete. That would be substantially faster than both the ECI project in Nicaragua, where hundreds of homes are expected to be built over a 20-year period, and the Playa del Sol project on the Gulf Coast of Costa Rica, a 12-to-15-year development.

Gran Pacifica's plans in Nicaragua were delayed by last year's election of former Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega as that country's president.

While his election has meant no real policy changes for Gran Pacifica, the development has faced delays nonetheless, establishing only four residents so far and completing an estimated 8 percent of the development.

The Gran Pacifica development also expects to open with a resort hotel.

ECI also is pursuing other developments to offer potential buyers, including retirees, with a host of different resort condo options. Cobb expects to begin developing a condo resort in the wine region of Argentina, Panama and the highlands of Costa Rica.

"By having multiple geographic choices, we can address what the client wants," he said.

www.pittsburgh.bizjournals.com

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