Geon Contractors and Associates Limited will be investing some $400 million to develop 10 town houses for the high-end market on a 1.2-acre plot at Paddington Terrace in Kingston.

Paddington Chateaux will be Geon's first project since the recession hit, which the company acknowledges as a risk.

"This is a very calculated move," said Reynold Scott, executive chairman of the Geon Group of Companies.

"We are hoping that the market will recover and the units will be taken up."

Jamaica's real estate market has slowed with the recession, especially sales of upscale properties priced above $35 million.

But Scott said his optimism comes from the fact that the United States economy is on the way to recovery.

"If the American market recovers, remittances will improve, our bauxite sector will also improve and there will be a direct spin-off," he argued.

A calculated move

The timing of the completion of the project, November 2010, was also a calculated move, he said. The International Monetary Fund has forecast that the big economies would likely have fully emerged from recession by then, with growth predicted at three per cent around the globe.

The Paddington project - for which Scott said he has approval to subdivide the property but is still awaiting the building permit from the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation - already got the necessary approvals, will be targeted at investors who already own property but are looking to purchase smaller homes.

"They would buy a home like this," he said. "This will give them an opportunity to purchase down but at the same time maintain the same (up market) presence."

The units are also being pitched at investors who want to either lease or rent.

Paddington is the most expensive units that Geon is known to have put on the market. The three-bedroom, 2,725-square foot units are priced at $38.95 million each.

Its previous top-end project, Casa Monte Estate at Old Stony Hill Road - comprised of 30 apartments of 1,700 square feet each, and 21 four-bedroom houses, each 3,200 square feet - were priced at $16 million to over $30 million.

Scott said some of the four-bedrooms sold for up to $50 million.

Scott said 90 per cent of the units have been sold, including all the apartments, with three of the houses remaining.

Another development at Old Stony Hill, the eight-unit Rockhampton,has also sold out, he said.

Infrastructure work for Paddington Chateaux is expected to begin early in 2010 and construction of the units shortly after, once all approvals are in.

dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com

A section of the Casa Monte Estate development, Geon's last big development, which is 90 per cent sold off. - File