Incredibly quick progress on Little Pete!

August 28th, 2008

The other day we visited Little Peter Caye to check on the new owner’s progress in development. I knew the new owners were contractors and they told me from the beginning that they wouldn’t waste time on their project. They were eager to get going.

It’s not that I didn’t believe them, because I did. But I was still shocked! These guys kicked butt!

During the escrow process the buyers hired Carlton Young, Owner of Young’s Engineering Consultancy in Belize City to give an opinion of the island’s feasibility for building. After a few tests, the island was given a clean bill of health and the sale closed.

Carlton is a terrific civil and structural engineer that knows his stuff on island property. We highly recommend him for your due diligence period investigations of soil and building feasibility.

Once the sale closed, the new owners of Little Peter didn’t waste any time getting to work. Permits were immediately applied for and then the project hit the ground running!

It’s important to note that this is a personal estate project among a group of close friends. It will be completed at their leisure with no real timeframe attached. So work may progress quickly, then stop for a few months, then start back up again.

Even though I knew they were serious about getting started, I was still blown away by the progress made in just a shade over 2 weeks. The quality was top notch, easily some of the best I’ve ever seen on any island.

The initial project was to get a caretaker house and pier built. Since this was a new undertaking by seasoned contractors, they knew what they wanted to achieve but still had to learn the secrets of where to get the best pricing on quality components and then getting them out to the island. This was no small task.

Ultimately, supplies were purchased in Belmopan and loaded onto an 18 wheeler for transportation to Sittee River where they were then loaded onto several small skiffs for the 8 mile journey to the island. This of course took many trips back and forth to get it all out there.

The crew camped out on the island while building and worked continuously until the pier and house were near completion. The long term plans call for a big palapa on the end of the pier which will add quite a few feet to the length of the structure. But for now the goal was to get the majority of the pier built and the caretaker’s house dried in.

Keep in mind we were there during a “work-in-progress” so there were still small details needing completion. A couple weeks after these pictures were taken the owners came back down and installed the plumbing, electrical, and septic system in the house so it’s fully habitable and environmentally sound. I’ll get those pictures during my next trip!

Getting this much accomplished would be a truly remarkable achievement in the US with plenty of Home Depots to supply whatever you need. But imagine doing it on an island in a small foreign country, 8 miles off shore, without a barge, in 15 days!! It’s just amazing.

I expect Little Peter will be a frequent stop for us to show our clients how it can be done and that it really isn’t as hard as it seems.

The good news is these owners are interested in helping their new neighbors accomplish the same thing. So preparations are underway to offer construction services for our clients. Since we’re all neighbors here, we might as well work together to get the highest quality work for the best price we can.

Being from Texas, they understand the high expectations of foreign buyers because they have the same concerns. So if you would like a referral to some great people with amazing construction management abilities, let me know and I’ll gladly make the introduction.

We’ll keep you posted on the progress. We might even get some videos of this one. The owners said they’re video documenting everything along the way.

Categories: General, island development