Gardens of Dreams Costa Rica

April 9, 2006 - Jardines de Ensuenos - Renderings and Floorplans

Many have been asking for better details on the design of our units as well as the perspective renderings so as to have a clearer picture of what the completed project will look like. Long at last our artist completed these to our approval on Thursday so we have been busy getting these into our brochures, adds and website listings. Please find attached seven jpeg files that you can view in any photo viewing software where you can zoom in to get closer ups. Note that for the floor plans the title indicates which unit type it is A,B or C. There is also a pdf file of the site plan with the unit numbers on them that can be blown up in Acrobat Reader, note that the odd numbers are lower units and even are top for the A & B units. I trust this will be helpful for you to select exactly which unit you would prefer.

Progress moves forward through the processes to receive the approvals on our project which is in all respects quite a formality considering our standards of construction are way ahead of other projects that receive approval on a regular basis plus the fact that we are building in an urban setting surrounded on three sides by other projects none of which have sewage treatment plants as well as our low density with 61% green area. All our engineering is moving ahead rapidly now with the delivery of working drawings to us this past week as well, that are now out in circulation to find the most suitable contractors for the manual labour to complete our project. Daily we work with finalizing the supply contracts for the many suppliers needed to provide us with quality products at good prices, it is kind of like a major shopping enterprise or big Easter Egg hunt as we track down the most desirable products possible.

After much searching and dumping several engineers that did not talk our language in regards to thinking green (a rarity here) we managed to find an engineer Frank Czul, PHD from McGill, that specializes in energy conservation so he is now hard at work designing us a state of the art air conditioning system/water heating system that will run on a fraction of the electricity that is typically used. To say the least this is critical as this single bill is the largest one for the entire project other than employee salaries aside from the fact we want to put as little strain on the grid as is humanly possible. This subject brings up a humorous side note with regards to quality of construction as well as the forethought of the developer for the long term benefit of their owners. As a direct comparison our next door neighbour's project, Montecarlo Condominiums currently selling for $250,000, however this subject will not be very humorous for the actual owners of these units as the developer has thought insulation in the roof is of no importance. (I will take a picture of this for demonstration in one of my next newsletters.) The end result is the developer will save himself a whopping $60 or .024% of the selling price a unit. The actual owner would be able to pay for this in about 30 -60 DAYS of electricity savings, Now that is what I would call a classic example that might cause one to wonder if the builder has actually built anything bigger than an outhouse in his entire life. Talk about being mathematically challenged not to mention the greater comfort of not having your unit heat up like an oven under the midday sun. This is also why we will be building with Coventec which is a styrofoam wall system that also cuts energy costs considerably as well as being very low in noise transfer, to say the least a nice benefit in multiple unit housing. Our energy costs will at least be half of what is customary here and I suspect even more will come to light as the final design comes forward shortly.

Other than the above small matters I have been extremely busy in high season here with many perspective buyers coming to check us and Costa Rica out, I can now almost drive to Jaco blindfolded. We now have a reserve list of 33 for purchasing units which will be confirmed as soon as we finalize the deposit and payment system. I will be sending out another newsletter this week to deal with those issues as well.

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