High end projects back on track

While some of Cayman’s larger development projects may have taken some time to get back up to speed with additional health and safety requirements implemented due to Covid and a loss of workers, most are now only three to six months off their original completion phases.

Many of the projects have seen a considerable ramping up of construction in recent weeks with workers coming back on board who may have been temporarily repatriated due to the pandemic. The largest project now getting back on track is the 54 residence WaterMark on Seven Mile Beach.

“WaterMark is now out of the ground with substructure work starting and the digging out for the foundations mostly completed,” Kim Lund, owner/broker at RE/MAX (Cayman Islands) advised. “This project is only about two to three months behind because they already had the resources and manpower on island in order to come back quickly.”

The next largest project on Seven Mile is the complete redevelopment of Lacovia, which will see approximately 88 brand new residences evolve over three buildings where the old premises once stood. Construction had been due to start on this development this year, but this will now begin some time next year due to delays caused by Covid.

The Grand Hyatt will see 357 brand new residences and suites further down Seven Mile towards George Town at Pageant Beach. Mr Lund envisages this development is around three to six months behind schedule, with excavation now completed and the sub-structure and foundation work to begin soon.

The 80-residences Hilton Curio project is progressing “very well”, according to Mr Lund, having already completed foundations at the time of lockdown and therefore finding it easier to ramp construction up again now.

The final large project in Cayman now very much back to work is the 36 residence Fin development on South Sound.

“This project is only around three months to completion and very likely by the end of the year as it was already well along the way before Covid came along,” Mr Lund confirmed.

A new wave of demand

Once Cayman began to emerge from the lockdown that Covid had caused, the islands saw a considerable wave of new interest in the buying of real estate from overseas people looking to find a safe haven from their home countries, and that wave is still exceptionally strong now, Mr Lund said. The interest was in property across the Cayman Islands and not just in the high end condominiums of Seven Mile Beach, “from properties worth a few hundred thousand to those worth up to US$25 million,” he stated.

“The interest has been across the board and I have been very pleasantly surprised and impressed by the current strength of buying activity,” Mr Lund said.