Source: http://www.journalcr.com
Posted by Roger Vlasos
Broker/Owner
Century21 At the Beach
Playas del Coco, Guanacaste, Costa Rica
Website: http://www.century21incostarica.com
Email: roger@century21incostarica.com
(Infocom) — According to the professional responsibility construction registry of the Federated Engineers and Architects Association (CFIA), last March was the month was the largest request for construction permits measured in square meters of the past five years, with 758,509 m2. In fact, the first quarter of 2008 was the most active CFIA has seen in the past five years, with the professional organization okaying over 2.3 million m2 of construction throughout the country.
During the first three months of the year, San Jose province stayed in first place in construction area reported to CFIA, with a total of 686,313 m2, or 30 percent of the country’s total. That represented a 61 percent increase for Costa Rica’s most populous province compared to the first quarter of 2007.
Guanacaste was fourth out of the country’s seven provinces, with reports of 347,590 square meters, or 15 percent of the total. After San Jose, Puntarenas, Heredia, Guanacaste and Alajuela all had very similar shares of the total pie, with around 15 percent. But Alajuela, which came of fifth, had the biggest decrease (25 percent) in construction area compared to the same period last year.
No. 2 Puntarenas had 376,081 m2 of new construction registered last quarter, for 16 percent of the total. Posting a big gain was Heredia, which for the first time climbed to third place, boosting construction area by 80 percent in comparison with the first quarter of last year with a total of 361,495 m2. This was the largest positive variation of all provinces, with Heredia (the smallest province) becoming one of the main drivers of growth in the construction industry this year.
At the bottom of the list were Cartago (142,371 m2, or 6 percent) and Limon (69,861 m2, barely 3 percent of the country’s total).
When breaking down the country by cantons, it’s possible to see that some of them had more construction are registered than even Cartago and Limon provinces. For example, the upscale canton of Escazu, west of San Jose, concentrated 10 percent of registered construction area in the country (231,792 m2), while the central canton of Heredia scored 9.4 percent of the national total (217,793 m2). In the case of Guanacaste, the cantons with the most construction activity were Santa Cruz, Liberia, Carrillo and Nicoya, all along the Pacific coast (see graphic).
