Golf & Marina: No Longer a Dream

CUBA WILL BOAST ONE OF THE LARGEST AND FINEST GOLF-ORIENTED REAL-ESTATE COMPOUNDS IN THE CARIBBEAN AND LATIN AMERICA

The ball gets lost for a moment into the reddish setting sun that sinks in the balmy waters of the Gulf of Mexico that wait to lull it down. “I swung the club wrong. I got unlucky today”, the golfer grumbles.

He looks up skeptically. The ball doesn't show up. He squeezes the club moodily. A couple of dolphins jump over the water to annoy the parsimonious loggerhead turtles that unassailably continue their ancestral path to the southern beaches of the Guanahacabibes peninsula. They are going to spawn.

A flock of partridge pigeons –an endangered species endemic to Cuba - snaps him out of his self-absorption ... “The last straw now would be that they poop me.” A few seconds pass by and the ball eventually appears. “Yes, come on, fall, fall, yes.” The hole is in the sea and the water swallows the spherical object. “There's nothing like a good golf course,” the man beams.

The anecdote has not happened yet. But don't rule it out. The Punta Colorada Golf & Marina megaproject (a joint venture between La Playa Golf & Resorts International Panama S.A. and Cubagolf S.A.) is barely beginning, yet it promises to become one of the most luring golf-related real-estate compounds in the Caribbean and Latin America.

Close to Cape San Antonio, Cuba's westernmost tip, Playa Colorada is nestled in the Gulf of Guadiana, in the municipality of Sandino, Pinar del Río. This will be the setting of a colossal project which will cover some 3,700 hectares when the investment is completed, planned for a period of 25 years.

The first stage, scheduled to be fulfilled in seven years, will take 700 hectares. It will have 1,250 rooms grouped in three hotels; over 1,700 houses doled out among villas, apartments and bungalows; a 300-slip marina; several golf courses, including one that will have a

El megaproyecto Punta Colorada Golf & Marina promete convertirse en uno de los complejos inmobiliarios asociados

al golf más atractivos del Caribe y América Latina The Punta Colorada Golf & Marina megaproject promises to become one of the most luring golf-related real-estate compounds in the Caribbean and Latin America.

hole in the sea –unseen in the whole wide world - and a highperformance sports center where football, tennis, baseball and sailing athletes could train.

But the opportunity to enjoy the charms of a quasi-pristine landscape, that will definitely be preserved and sustainable, according to the concept that its environment-friendly construction and exploitation, won't take that long. Last September, for example, the Friends of Punta Colorada Club was launched, a virtual space on the company's official website which allows access to preferential treatment.

The company's schedule also provided for the pre-sales stage to commence in the second half of October through real-estate operators, as well as the grand opening of a thatchroofed locale on the premises of the project's sailing compound, as a reception and demonstration center for visitors and guests.

In May 2019, the site will be unveiled as a new travel destination within the framework of the FitCuba Tourism Fair in Havana, while the Demonstration Center will be inaugurated and launched in the sailing area. For its part, the Minimum Virtual Product (PMV is the acronym in Spanish) will be fully and globally operation by December 2019.

Punta Colorada is one of the 13 real-estate projects that are currently underway or being negotiated on the island nation. According to the Cuban government's plans, the largest Caribbean island must have as many as 27 golf courses in coming

years.