San­dra Chouthi

Solid­ly es­tab­lished names in busi­ness–from con­struc­tion to en­ter­tain­ment–are be­hind the mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar de­vel­op­ment Bel Air Bay con­do­mini­ums in La Ro­maine: con­trac­tor Ju­nior Sam­my, en­ter­tain­ment spe­cial­ist John­ny Soong and builder Er­ic Mo­hammed. The prin­ci­pals be­hind the project host­ed a fine-style launch in the build­ing that will be­come the club­house at the Bel Air Bay site last Sat­ur­day. Soong, who owns the Zen night­club in Port-of-Spain, said 42 three-bed­room units will be built on four acres.

The 25 units fac­ing the wa­ter­front are avail­able at pre­mi­um prices: $5.5 mil­lion, with the oth­ers go­ing for $5 mil­lion and $4.5 mil­lion.

The Bel Air Bay project will be worth at least $214 mil­lion. De­tails of the project were pre­sent­ed to promi­nent and es­tab­lished guests against a calm seafront and the or­ange glow of a re­tir­ing sun. Land works are fin­ished. Foun­da­tion work is in progress. "These homes will be val­ue for mon­ey. They will re­tain their val­ue. And in re­al es­tate, it's lo­ca­tion, lo­ca­tion, lo­ca­tion. "Just based on the nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment, we have $1 mil­lion in nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment. Pre­mi­um. These are wa­ter­front prop­er­ties. It's the on­ly thing of its kind be­ing built right now in Trinidad," Soong said.

Zen's John­ny Soong, con­trac­tor Ju­nior Sam­my and builder Er­ic Mo­hammed at the un­veil­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Bel Air Bay project last Sat­ur­day. Pho­to: Tony How­ell

Among the in­vi­tees were House Speak­er Baren­dra Sinanan, San Fer­nan­do May­or Ken­neth Fer­gu­son, for­mer San Fer­nan­do may­or Ian Ather­ley, for­mer An­gos­tu­ra ex­ec­u­tive Patrick Pa­tel and se­nior mag­is­trate Lu­ci­na Car­dinez-Ra­goo­nanan. Ryan Se­bas­t­ian Sinanan, at­tor­ney from the San Fer­nan­do law firm, Hob­sons, is han­dling the con­veyanc­ing work. Mo­hammed, a builder of high-end prop­er­ties, said the en­tire liv­ing space–in­clud­ing the pool and garage–will be 6,000 square feet.

"It's a lifestyle we are pro­vid­ing," Mo­hammed said to five of the in­vit­ed guests dur­ing a tour. To en­tice guests, Mo­hammed said any­one who made out pay­ments for a prop­er­ty on the evening were to get a ten per cent dis­count off the pur­chase price. He said they had lit­tle to lose as banks were on­ly of­fer­ing three per cent on sav­ings.

DS Ma­haraj Ltd had on dis­play at the launch GE $24,000 sky blue glass front and stain­less steel fridges and a glossy red $27,000 wash­er and dry­er. Andy Kissoon, pur­chas­ing in­ven­to­ry man­ag­er, said DS Ma­haraj was con­tract­ed to or­der 45 units of each ap­pli­ance for the project. One res­i­dent from the es­tab­lished Bel Air com­mu­ni­ty de­scribed Bel Air Bay as an "ex­cel­lent con­cept, ex­cel­lent de­sign."

"I see no rea­son why they can't sell all of them," he said.

An­oth­er said the sun­set is a sight to be­hold. "I live just down the street. It takes five min­utes for the sun to dis­ap­pear. I timed it on nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions. You can't mea­sure that in dol­lars and cents," he said.