News Room
Property Week - February 09, 2007
Livingstone’s scoop world’s largest site
Ian and Richard Livingstone’s London & Regional Properties
(L&R) this week scooped the largest development deal in the
world: a $7bn (£3.5m) district in Panama City.
L&R was selected to develop the 2,750 acre (1,114 ha) former
Howard Air Force Base next to Panama City and the Panama Canal in
the Central American country. The decision is still subject to
formal ratification by the Panamanian government.
The developer won the site after a final round of bidding
against US-based Easton Group. It is to pay around $705m (£357m)
for the site.
L&R’s focused on the European markets until last year when
it expanded into South Africa with the purchase of the 200 acre (81
ha) Victoria and Albert Waterfront in Cape Town.
It has prepared a phased, 40-year masterplan for the Panama
site. This will deliver a new city district comprising 645m sq ft
(60m sq m) of development, worth an estimated $7bn (£3.5bn).
L&R’s plans feature a range of employment-generating uses
and residential accommodation. Among them are a campus-style office
park, a science park and a distribution hub linking Howard’s runway
with a potential deep-sea port. There will also be hotels, a golf
and leisure resort, a hospital and educational facilities. The
developer also plans extensive infrastructure investment to enable
the site to be linked to the Bridge of the Americas and the
Pan-American Highway to Panama City.
L&R views the Panama deal as a springboard into the largely
untapped property markets of Central and South America.
The two-year, open-market selection process was run by the World
Bank on behalf of the AAEEPP, a department of the government of
Panama. Around 17 companies expressed an interest in the deal,
which is due to be completed within the next month.
L&R will work with local partners, bankers Jaime and Isaac
Gilinski, to deliver the project. It is to open an office in Panama
City to oversee the project.
Ian Livingstone said: "It’s a huge vote of confidence in Panama
City, and shows that the government really means business".
Last year’s national referendum approved expansion of the Panama
Canal on land adjacent to the Howard site has underwritten a new
wave of inward investment.
L&R’s Development Director, Jason Mills, said: "It is a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for one company to plan and deliver
an entire new city district."
Daniel Thomas