Later this year, a Las Vegas-based hotelier hopes to break ground on what it describes as a “world-class,” eco-friendly resort community, complete with a golf course capable of hosting international tournaments, on the northern coast of Costa Rica.
Montanas del Pacifico will take shape on 363 acres in the village of Sardinal, in Puntarenas Province, a 90-minute drive from San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital. Besides the golf course, the community will include 530 condos, a 120-room hotel, an equestrian center, a water park, a “volcanic-driven health spa,” a shopping area, restaurants and bars, hiking trails, and other attractions.
The community is being developed by Oriens Travel & Hotel Management Corporation, a publicly traded firm that operates more than a dozen Pure-branded hotels in Costa Rica and several others in the United States, Panama, and Nicaragua. Oriens is currently putting the finishing touches on the community’s master plan, which should be finalized sometime this summer.
When the master plan is completed, Oriens also expects to select a designer for Montanas del Pacifico’s “international-standard” golf course, which will offer views of the Pacific Ocean and be routed through the resort’s condos. Ken Chua, the company’s Vancouver, British Columbia-based president, says that he hopes to commence construction on the course in late 2011, with an opening tentatively set for 2013.
The Montanas del Pacifico property is owned by S. V. International Developers, SA, a Costa Rican company led by Eduardo Vilchez and Rafael Anthony Salas. According to Chua, Vilchez and Salas own four other properties where similar resorts could be built. Oriens is already negotiating to build a resort on one of them, a 480-acre parcel roughly 50 miles south of the Montanas del Pacifico site.
This story originally appeared in the World Edition of the Golf Course Report, in a slightly different form. For a sample copy of the WorldEdition@aol.com.