Anonymous - 2-21-2004 at 08:42 PM
http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/0211mexico11.html
Glen Creno
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 11, 2004
A Valley real estate player is trying to revive a Mexican coastal development that was tripped up by the tourism slump that followed the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks.
The Villages of Loreto Bay
What: Single-family homes in Baja California Sur, Mexico.
Where: Near Gulf of California, 300 miles north of Cabo San Lucas.
Developers: Valley real estate player Jim Grogan, Canadian developer David Butterfield and tourism agency of Mexican government.
Project size: 5,000 residences, a beach club hotel and a neighborhood center on 8,000 acres that include a nature preserve.
Construction is expected to start this month on the Villages at Loreto Bay, a planned 8,000-acre development that's to be a tourist and second-home
destination. One of the partners in the project is Arizona developer James Grogan, who has a background in home building but may be best known as a
former chairman and current board member of the Tourism and Sports Authority.
Grogan teamed with Canadian developer David Butterfield to form a company that's working with Mexico's tourism development agency on what is described
as a $2.2 billion project. Grogan said the agency pumped more than $200 million into such infrastructure as an airport and water and sewer facilities
to jump-start the community near the Gulf of California as a new tourism hot spot.
"They planned to build another Cancun in Loreto," he said. But after the terrorist attacks "everything just stopped."
Grogan said he and Butterfield and about 60 investors have put more than $7 million into the project. Property laws changed in the country, he said,
letting foreigners hold coastal land in a real estate trust and providing security to buyers, a key issue for anyone considering investing in real
estate in the country.
Buyers could use the property or sell it, he said. The trust lasts 50 years.
Houses at Loreto will be developed in nine phases and start at about $160,000. Developers are marketing the project internationally.
"People should be able to go down to a coffee shop, meet some guy from Greece or Mexico City," Grogan said.
Developers also are pitching an eco-friendly theme for the project.