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NEW ROADS TO SAN RAMON AND CALDERA WILL START BY YEAR END
Free Translation from article published in newspaper La Nacion- of September 7th, 2006By the end of this year, a European-Costa Rican consortium will start simultaneously building the roads from San Jose to San Ramon (58 kilometers) and from San Jose to the Port Caldera (77 kilometers).
This will reduce the trip between San Jose and Alajuela from 34 to 15 minutes during rush hours.
The trip between San Jose and San Ramon will also be reduced from 90 to 45 minutes during rush hours, while the trip between the capital and Port Caldera, in Central Pacific, will be reduced from one and a half hours to one hour and 10 minutes.
The road construction between San Jose and San Ramon will take 25 months and from San Jose to Caldera, two years. Both projects will be developed through public works concessions; this is, the private group will finance the works and will recuperate the investment collecting the toll for the next 25 years. On the road to San Ramon the toll will be $1.30; and, on the road to Caldera, $2.70.
These projects were awarded by the National Awarding Council (NAC) of the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation (MPWT) to a group formed by the Spanish enterprises FCC Construction and Itinere Infrastructure, the Portuguese group Soares Da Costa Concessoes and the Costa Rica Corporation M&S International. In the construction of the road to San Ramon the builders will be the groups Autopistas del Valle and Autopistas del Sol.
The drive for expropriations. The expansion of the road to San Ramon with additional lanes and overpass roads in the intersections has been awarded since June of 2004, but the works could not start at the beginning of the year due to some delays in the process of expropriations. Some 217 properties had to be acquired, of which the MPWT only had 20 when the previous administration ended its term. Now there are almost 120 more to be possessed by the State.
Luis Diego Vargas, technical secretary of the NAC explained that during the passed administration there was only one person at the MPWT to process the expropriations; but the present administration assigned five people more giving them travel expenses and vehicles. This allowed them to reduce the purchasing time for each property from 450 to 215 days. It was a matter of willing to do it, everything depended on the Minister , said Vargas.
Starting the construction of the section between San Jose and the International Airport depended on this 120 properties, explained Hada Muñoz, Manager of the concession.
The construction will start enlarging the bridges and moving the soil. Vargas guaranteed that the works will be initiated between November and December, in order to take advantage of the dry season. The construction will be on its way by Christmas , he assured.
The NAC expects to have completed the expropriations by March of 2007. The Manager indicated that the concessionary accepted to draw a timetable according to the acquisition of the right of way.
The road to San Ramon is the road most traveled in Central America. At the present time 80,000 cars drive through every day. With the enlargement NAC expects 120,000 cars per day.
In the case of the road between San Jose and Port Caldera the expropriations are almost completed, which will allow to immediately start the construction between San Jose and Santa Ana.
The construction work was undertaken by the consortium last March, after a Canadian-Argentinean group abandoned it. The NAC expects to have the financing for both projects finalized by the end of this month.
Projects details
San Jose-San Ramon
58 Km long. It will reduce the trip from 90 to 45 minutes during rush hours. Traveling from San Jose to Alajuela will take 15 minutes with a cost of $0.40. The total toll will be $1.30. The construction will include going from six to eight lanes in the section between San Jose and the International Airport (17 Km), and to four lanes between the Int. Airport and Manolo’s and refurbishing the three lanes between Manolo’s and San Ramon. Overpass roads will be built in every intersection, the bridges will be widened and there will be an 8.3 Km new road connecting Rio Segundo and Santa Ana. The group Autopistas del Valle will build this road for $266 million.San Jose-Port Caldera
77 Km long. It will reduce the trip from 100 to 70 minutes. The construction will include refurbishing the road between San Jose and Santa Ana (14.2 Km), build the road Santa Ana-Orotina (38.8 Km) and rebuilding Orotina-Port Caldera (23.8 Km). The first section has four lanes; the second one will have three and the last one, four lanes.
The toll for the whole trip will be $2.70. The cost of the project, $150 million will be financed by the consortium Autopistas del Sol through a public concession for 25 years.That’s good news, I guess, but I can only imagine the nightmare ahead when they actually start construction. It will be like the T-Rex project in Denver.
Thanks lotus
This is one of the half-done articles that I have been trying to find the time to finish …
I will post this as an article and make sure we mention it in the next newsletter
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comLotus
This is great news. The only problem I forsee for me is the Juan Santamaria to San Ramon route.
These road projects are greatly needed.
Thanks for the FREE translation. You are appreciated.
Cheers
Bill MaesRoute to Caldera out to Bid
Translation from article published in La Nacion- September 4th, 1998“If all goes as planned by the government, in one year Costa Ricans will be witness to how a promise made 25 years earlier becomes reality: the construction of the highway between San José and the port of Caldera…”
That’s 33 years, and counting.
Maravilla, How are you doing with the sale of your home? I’m in real estate in NYC and boy things are sitting. Just taking the temperature in another part of the country. We have friends in the Santa Barbara area of California who have been trying to sell a home they bought for investment and it’s been on the market about 4 months. My sister tells me things are pretty slow in the west palm beach area of Florida as well.
I PROMISE that I will let you know the day I see any earth moving at the Santa Ana end of this new highway.
My good friends, the developers of the CONCASA ‘Campo Real’ and ‘Bosque Real’ apartments are practically next door to that entrance and they seem confident that ‘this time’ it’s going to happen.
‘Vamos a ver’.
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comI am a Realtor® in the Denver market area. There has been a slow down for the last five years.
Denver metro area has about 29,000 single family homes and 9,000 condos on the market.
This market is not a very good place at the year. Denver and Colorado rank either number one or real close to number one for foreclosures.
If you have the money and want to invest, can wait another two years, there are bargains galore in this market and others. Lender owned properties is what I am referring.
We need a change in Colorado… and it looks like the rest of the country is finally following suit with the woes here.
Try to be Cheerful…
Bill MaesBill is right. There are houses that have been on the market for 6+ months with no possibility of a sale now with winter approaching. We finally took our house off the market and are proceeding with plan B which is for me to live in CR while hubby does the 35 bank murals for Wells Fargo and just travels back and forth. We still have some people who are interested in buying it but it’s all about financing. Not even the million dollar homes are moving in my neighborhood. It’s not just slow — it’s a DEAD market right now.
I’m a Realtor in Tampa and Florida real estate is SLOW. Let’s put it this way: I sold houses in 24 hours to 7 days on average last year and had multiple out of control bidding wars. NOW, I have 13 listings, only 2 scheduled closings this month. Condos especially in Tampa and Miami are sitting and not selling. Developers are offering insane incentives to get people to buy. I have listings that have sat on the market for up to 5 months. Never in a million years would I have thought that this would have been the state of the market this year. Luckily, I sold all my rentals earlier this year and my own home. I’ll be in sunny CR next month and I can’t wait!
We just made the move to CR and decided to sell our last house in Los Osos, CA (central coast, north of Santa Barbara); it only took us a couple months to sell but we drastically reduced the price. Otherwise, homes are sitting for months. So, I guess the moral is,if you’re willing to price it much lower and possibly even take a loss, it will move. Not a fun way to do real estate but we thought it might get even worse and it was time to cut our losses.
CC
Boy, just insert Manhattan where Florida is and that’s is my EXACT situation here! I’m glad to hear from some brokers who are not afraid to except reality. Quite a few up here have there head in the sand still.
Cindy you are right on the money with that, it will get worse, much worse before it gets better. And if you bought your home 5 or 10 years ago you still should have enough equity to make a profit. But everything will sell at the right price, and the smart sellers will be ahead of the curve, realize this and price to sell before everyone else wakes up(panics) and the market is flooded with homes. As a wise man once said, “You can’t go broke making a profit”.
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