Not a peep about Playa Grande on this board?

[Golfer]

It's hard to believe that the announcement that Herb Kohler has acquired Playa Grande two days ago has generated no interest on this board. If you were as familiar with the Kohler empire as we are here in Wisconsin you would realize that the entire dynamic of the north coast of the DR is about to change forever. The 2004 PGA Championship is being held this summer at one of Mr. Kohler's courses and this guy is five star all the way. The main thing constraining the development of the spectacular Playa Grande area has been access. Mr. Kohler plans a large airport, nearly 1000 five star motel rooms, another coastal golf course, gourmet restaurants, marinas and more. Anyone who knows this guy knows that he will not stop until the Playa Grande area supplants Casa De Campo as the Carribean's premier golf destination. Ladies and Gentlemen, the price of poker on the North Coast has just gone up. Rio San Juan will never be the same and Mr. Colon can forget about his 800 peso chicas floating around Cabrette. Fasten your seat belts!

[RandyE]

Thread started on this in the business section. Get ready to start paying thru the a## for golf on the North Shore. Oh well, fun while it lasted.

[Narcosis]

Hey Golfer:

I think many people here are very interested, but in the DR we learn to see building start before we get too excited, you don't imagine how many projects have been anounced and never see the light of day.

Hey if Mr. Kohler want's to out-do Casa de Campo as a golf destination that is great to hear.

That is just the spirit that made Vegas the destination it is. Competition is a deliteful thing.

[Dolores]

People in Wisconsin... keep dr1 posted if anything on this comes out in the Wisconsin press. So far, when friend journalist John Collins contacted the press people of the Kohler company they were not commenting on the deal, but they did not deny it. From dr1 we contacted the business editor of the Madison newspaper and did not get a reply. Again, let us know if anything comes up about this in Wisconsin.

[mondongo]

This is not necessarily good for the Dominican populace. At US$20K per acre, the DR govt gave away this beach front property too cheaply. It places yet another piece of beautiful terrain in the hands of foreigners. I personally don't like it. This will benefit the owners of the hotel, but will do little to improve the lives of the locals. I would have liked to see this land sold to DR residents, even if it meant selling it for less money. This land belongs to the DR people...... not to the greedy, seedy govt larvae.

[Golfer]

http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/apr04/223061.asp

Check out a legimate news source

[Robert]

Originally Posted by Golfer

http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/apr04/223061.asp

Check out a legimate news source

Nice report, lets see what happens now.

As for the "DR1 Hipolitto shill?" comment.
If you had a clue about DR1, your right index finger would now be in
pain from trying to get the edit button to work .

[Narcosis]

How could the creation of new jobs be bad for the local people?

As far as locals not buying the land, that would be much worse if it was "given away" just to keep it in locals hands to anyone. The land would become of much less use to the local population maybe becoming a few nice private ranches.

Most large tourism projects are funded abroad anyway by banks or investment groups and they will not put money into a project just because you have a nice vision, you need to have some backround and prove your project will sell.

If the Kohler group can bring some of it's up-scale customers to the DR than I welcome that, we need to start to phase away from our dependency on the AI resorts and broaden our spectrum of offerings.

If this becomes a success than locals in the area will benefit as well by having their land values go up. Nothing wrong about that huh?

[Chris]

I found the following from the quoted news report quite interesting...

"Playa Grande "is owned by Central Bank, which is owned by the government," Kohler said. "They're trying to get this done before the election. They're doing every conceivable thing to convince the people of the Dominican Republic that they're fiscally responsible."

I like the man already... He seems to have called the first part of the game quite clearly.

[Escott]

Well if I had a quarter for everything I have read regarding the North Coast Developement in the last 3 years I could feed the hungry in Haiti.

Everything is BS here and I believe NOTHING of what I read and only half of what I see.

I am all for this type of development on the North Coast and would do and put up with just about anything to see the roads fixed, jobs created, a tax base built and everything taken out of the hands of the Government which is corrupt to the enth degree in my opinion.

I am not a golfer but may take it up some day.

Scott