Friday, April 25, 2008
By Ralph Nicholson
A consortium of developers is to pave a critical 15-kilometers (9.5 miles) of dirt road from Sardinal through to the Zapotal Valley and neighboring Guanacaste beaches.
The $10 million project is likely to start in November when rains have finished and would be completed in about 18 months.
The idea is to bring a handful of high-end hotel projects on the beaches which front the Zapotal Valley within an easy drive of Daniel Oduber International Airport.
Developers behind the Ritz Carlton Hotel on Playa Guacamaya, the Rosewood Hotel on Playa Guachipelin, an RIU Resort near Playa Matapalo and an as-yet-unnamed hotel on Las Catalinas above Sugar Beach are all involved in the consortium to build the road.
The development came to light when investors went to the Municipality of Carrillo looking for help with requests for permits.
“The investors told me they had received little support from the Consejo Nacional de Vialidad (the National Roads Commission, or CONAVI), given they had requested the necessary permits and information regarding the technical specifications but had not received an answer,” the Mayor of Carrillo, Carlos Gerardo Cantillo, told the council this week.
Mayor Cantillo said he had spoken with the Minister of Public Works and Transport, Karla González.
“She designated Vice Minister, Pedro Castro, to work with the investors,” Mayor Cantillo said.
The government is understood to be appointing an engineer who would oversee the private work.
“We have already built all the bridges involved to get down to the Zapotal Valley,” confirmed Larry Silverstein, one of the investors behind the Ritz Carlton Hotel development.
The sealed road is likely to become an integral part of the key tourist road, known as the Ruta del Sol.
That 460-kilometer (288 miles) road will eventually track the Northern Pacific Coast from La Cruz on the border with Nicaragua south to Santa Teresa, on the southern tip of the Nicoya Peninsula, north again to the Tempisque Bridge and inland back to La Cruz.
There’s been great debate over the past five years about the 15-kilometer section which would join the northern Guanacaste beaches with those farther south, like Potrero, Flamingo, Brasilito, Grande and Tamarindo.
Not only would it shave up to 40 minutes off the drive to Liberia’s airport, but it would also join Guanacaste’s northern golf courses with those farther south.
In fact, in August last year Minister González urged private companies to get involved in helping complete the Ruta del Sol.
“I would be delighted for any help we can get from the private sector,” Ms González said at the time. “We have no plans for the northern section of the Ruta del Sol and the survey and design phase is always much easier for the private sector.”
The design phase of major roads is a 12-month process for the government, involving a lengthy bidding process. Appeals can make the process even longer, whereas the private sector has no legal requirement to put the process out to tender.
