5 months ago
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Puerto Caribe Properties Limited plans to build one of the tallest structures in Jamaica at Secret Estate, Rose Hall, which will operate under the Moon Palace brand, document filings and sources have revealed.
The hotel will have about 30 floors, based on architectural renderings in documents for the resort. The design shows multiple towers of similar height and overlooking the sea, plus eight overwater villas, according to the document titled ‘Moon Palace The Grand Montego Bay at Success’.
Previously, The Ascent at 27 storeys was expected to become the tallest building. But the development slated for Oxford Road in Kingston is yet to get off the ground, and its last social media post on Instagram was in 2021.
That project was already overtaken by The Pinnacle Resorts in Montego Bay, which is under construction. It features four towers, each 28 storeys high.
In Kingston, a residential tower being built on or adjacent to Surbiton Avenue spans over 17 floors, while the long-standing Jamaica Pegasus hotel, which was built in the 1970s, has 17 floors.
Puerto Caribe Properties received approval from the National Environment and Planning Agency, NEPA, this month for its project to proceed, with the granting of an environmental permit for the clearance of vegetation of six hectares or more for a hotel/resort development at Success Estate.
Efforts to reach representatives of the project and Palace Resorts were unsuccessful.
Rose Hall is a prime tourism hub with multiple large-scale developments.
Details on the size of the investment and room count for the new Moon Palace property were not disclosed in the NEPA filings seen by the Financial Gleaner. However, at a dinner engagement last October, Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett disclosed that the development of a Moon Palace resort encompassing 1,350 rooms was slated for Montego Bay.
Success Estate once totalled 775 acres by some estimates but, over time, it merged into other estates, collectively called the Northern Estates.
In recent decades, state agency Urban Development Corporation (UDC), which holds the property, has done several mixed-use projects at Success Estate, including the Montego Bay Convention Centre, which sits on 32 acres. Foreign investors in recent years also built a 400-room resort in Montego Bay under the UNICO brand, and will, reportedly, also build 1,000 housing units for workers on neighbouring lands. It forms part of a push by government to build housing in the proximity of hotels to facilitate resort workers.
In June 2023, the UDC sought to sell 70 acres of land at Success Estate for a resort or residential project. However, up to press time, the agency was yet to say whether the lands cut into two lots of 28.5 acres and 40 acres were sold.
Collectively, recent hotel projects in Jamaica have added some 8,700 new rooms to the tourism sector, representing investments of over US$2.6 billion.
Major developments in progress for completion this year include the Hardrock Hotel & Casino, US$800 million, set to add 1,100 rooms; Viva Wyndham, US$100 million, adding 700 rooms; and Villa Janus, US$250 million, adding 510 rooms.
The owners of Puerto Caribe Properties Limited include Heron Development Corporation in Panama, International Hotel Reservation in Panama, Controladora IHC Sociedad Antonima de Capital Variable in Mexico, and Promotora Inmobiliaria Nueve in Mexico, according to Companies Office of Jamaica records.
Previous reports have stated that Puerto Caribe Properties is a member of Palace Resorts, and owner and operator of Moon Palace Jamaica Grande Hotel in Ocho Rios.
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