Jaco Beach has seen some welcome clean-up in the past months.

Jaco Beach has always been one of Costa Rica’s most popular beaches for various reasons. It is less than 2 hours from San Jose, the country’s capital, making it a quick and easy getaway for those seeking good waves, fresh seafood, and a relaxing time in the sun. The Pacific beach town is neighbor to some of the country’s finest resorts such as the Marriott Los Sueños and one of Costa Rica’s most popular white sand beaches, Playa Blanca, in the Punta Leona Reserve.

This easy access also allowed for over visitation and unplanned development in the past, giving the beach town a worn, uncared for look. However, Jaco has recently taken a new direction steering away from the over consumption, party town atmosphere. The local community and a new brand of developer have been working together to fight this reputation, and much of their hard work was finally acknowledged when the town was recently awarded the Ecological Blue Flag.

This is the first year the small community of Jaco Beach has met the standards to receive this coveted award. The Blue Flag Program has been inspecting and rating beaches in Costa Rica since 1996 and the members were pleasantly surprised to award the small Pacific beach town 94.5% out of 100% in terms of ecological standards, cleanliness and environmental awareness of the community. They even returned a second time out of skepticism, further proof that the beach has experienced a dramatic turn around and is taking such matters more seriously.

The town racked up a 100% for its potable drinking water, and also attained major points in areas such as their brand new recycling program, approved landfill, street cleanliness, public health campaigns, environmental education, and citizen and tourist protection. Although Jaco is still lacking a sewage system, which caused them to lose quite a few points, there are plans in place to build sewage facilities by 2009 with a $4 million project already in the works provided by the AyA (Costa Rica’s Water and Sewage Institute).

The sewage system won’t be the only new development gracing the Jaco area. Costa Rica real estate is a popular market in general, and particularly so these day in Jaco. As the only city in Costa Rica that allows buildings and developments on the coastline, it is no wonder why it is Costa Rica’s newest real estate hot spot. The main difference from past years is that building codes and environmental impact are being looked at more seriously due to nation-wide awareness. The majority of the developments going up are luxury condos and residential areas, designed for the discerning buyer.

The little beach town will soon be the home of Vista Las Palmas, which will before long become the second largest building in Costa Rica. It will stand 18 stories high (one story less than the Banco Nacional Building in San Jose downtown) and house 51 condominium units with the entire top floor featuring a luxury penthouse. All units boast unobstructed beach front ocean views and an impressive 100% emergency electric plant. The huge real estate development only has three units left starting at $710,000 but the entire project entails a $31 million investment that will dramatically change the coastline of Jaco forever.

Despite the new face of real estate in Jaco, it has taken off with such haste that city officials were not prepared. Water permits were recently suspended due to outdated and inadequate water distribution that could not handle the large increase in development; however, the problem should be quickly rectified. Real estate developer Francisco Fonseca who is developing a building with 120 condos and a 100,000 square meter shopping center in his 10 6-story tower property Pacific Palms, is heading a $3 million Public-Private Partnership to bring the current redistribution plant up to date in order to allow real estate expansion to continue without delay.

The money will be held in a trust fund at the Banco Nacional (Costa Rica’s National Bank) while the developers contract out the construction of the water distribution infrastructure with government plans and supervision. Upon completion, the new and improved infrastructure will become government property and grant the several different real estate developers who contribute to the trust fund the water availability letters needed to obtain building permits and allow them to continue with their 2,500 units in construction.

Most of Jaco’s major developers have already contributed a little more than $1.5 million of the $3 million goal including Brad Sanson, Real Estate Developer for Vista Las Palmas and the already completed 8-story 28 unit Vista Mar property in Jaco. Other contributors include Francisco Fonseca of Pacific Palms and Pacific Sun Estates, as well as Day-Star Properties and Grupo Zeta.

Jaco sure has come a long way especially considering that 15 years ago the whole region didn’t even have electricity! With the multitude of expansions in Jaco due to the several major real estate developments, it is clearly not what it used to be. Don’t worry Jaco is still home to some gorgeous waves, fresh seafood and everything else one loves about the laid back beach life; just consider it upgraded.

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Filed under: Business, Surf on June 3rd, 2008