Making a conservative estimate, Tejada estimates that between four and five thousand homes are built each year in the fertile Cibao city.
By Ana María Ramos
El Inmobiliario
Photos: Fidel Pérez
The boom in short-term rental towers in Santiago de los Caballeros is explained by engineer Luis Tejada as a result of the fact that the city does not have enough hotels, and that the current tenancy law is not attractive for fixed-income purchases, since getting rid of a bad tenant is not an easy task.
“So if you can rent it for a short time and make money, why complicate things with tenants? That sparks more interest among investors,” the veteran developer declared during an interview for the print edition of El Inmobiliario , whose third edition is currently circulating.
He clarifies that, however, for the members of the Association of Housing Promoters and Builders of Cibao (APROCOVICI), building homes for families is the goal.
He understands that Airbnb is temporary and can be detrimental to developers, because it's a model that doesn't always guarantee peace of mind for families. "Building homes for families is what will never go out of style.".
Santiago and verticality
Tejada explains that 40 years ago Santiago de los Caballeros was just beginning to develop its first urbanizations, while in its Historic Center there were mostly single-family homes, some with the elegant European neoclassical style imported by the Spanish.
“They were prefabricated houses, but made of concrete; they made the walls of blocks and the roofs were lightweight slabs poured beforehand and then assembled on the roofs,” explains the representative of Constructora TECASA, a company with 36 years in the North zone.
Prior to the 1980s, the Heart City was limited in its constructions and only one-story houses could be built; after that date, buildings of four to six stories began to be erected.
“It was the fear of technicians at the time because Santiago has clay soil, unlike Santo Domingo which is rock, for that reason, plus the proximity to the tectonic fault, there was fear of opening up to vertical growth,” explains one of the pioneer developers of Cibao.
This refers to the tectonic faults that, according to experts, cross the northern region and place it as the area at greatest risk from earthquakes in the Dominican Republic, in addition to the strong earthquake that occurred in 1562 that completely destroyed the town of Santiago de los Caballeros, which had been built in the community of Jacagua.
Villa Olga, La Moraleja, Gurabo, La Trinitaria, La Esmeralda, La Hispaniola, Reparto del Este, La Zurza, Los Jardines Metropolitanos, Consuelo, among others were some of the first sectors, located in the Heart City.
Takeoff to modernity
Luis Tejada talks about the struggle they waged to get local authorities to open up to the possibility of Santiago starting vertical growth.
He recounts that APROCOVICI was founded in 2000, an organization through which they strengthened their proposals. “We had to wait until 2010 for Urban Planning to open up; we developers needed that change of vision.”.
Since then, Santiago has continued to grow, with numerous high-rise buildings that have positioned it as one of the fastest-growing real estate cities in the country in recent years. Using a conservative estimate, Tejada projects that between four and five thousand homes are built each year in this fertile Cibao region city.
The most prominent residential real estate project currently under construction is the majestic Halo tower, a 25-story complex located in La Trinitaria, featuring apartments of 530 square meters and over 7,000 square meters of social areas. Pantaleón Salcedo and Ideare Group are the development firms in charge, and the project is slated to open in 2028.
Santiago Center, a modern mixed-use shopping center, is added, along with five hotels, a monorail, an expansion of the Cibao International Airport, bank buildings, the restoration of the historic center, and other buildings.
Tejada believes Santiago should have grown vertically, as it would have saved land for future generations. He says he never understood the reasons for the limitations. “What changed was the perception, because the land is the same and we're located in the same place, so why all the fear that before it was only allowed for 4 or 6 stories?”.
He believes that in Santiago de los Caballeros, all necessary precautions have always been taken regarding construction. “There’s no way around it because the regulations don’t allow it, and we have to do it right whether we like it or not, and Santiago has always done it right. It’s the only city in the country that has always been properly supervised,” he states.
Figures
The study “Economic Sizing of the Construction Sector in the province of Santiago”, carried out by Analytica, with sponsorship from APROCOVICI, determined that from 2006-2021, 4,321 real estate projects were approved in the Heart City; the average labor income of informal employees in the construction sector grew by 1.6% reaching RD$26,451, that is, 11% higher than the rest of the country; likewise, the total investment in new infrastructure and the development of new real estate and residential complexes accumulated RD$63,008 million in that period.
During that time, private investment in infrastructure reached RD$49,002 million, equivalent to 10.5% of the national total. The urban area has expanded by 35% (14.74 km2) and has consolidated by 65% (27.98 km2), totaling 42.72 square kilometers (km2) of urban development, corresponding to 47% of the total study area (91.62 km2), the research found.
