Geisha Kow­lessar-Alon­zo

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

They first met at McGill Uni­ver­si­ty in Cana­da in 1975 and formed a friend­ship which to­day spans decades.

And not on­ly have Dr Kong­shiek Achong Low and Dr Boris Yufe be­come well-know gy­nae­col­o­gists in T&T but they are al­so shrewd busi­ness part­ners; con­tin­u­ous­ly mak­ing in­vest­ments, like their lat­est project be­ing The Grand Sa­van­nah.

Lo­cat­ed at 24 Queen’s Park West, the sod was turned last week for a ten-sto­ry mixed use build­ing.

Achong Low, who al­so sang ca­lyp­so un­der the soubri­quet “Dr So­ca,” told the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian that ini­tial­ly they had dab­bled with the idea of open­ing a bou­tique ho­tel which would have car­ried an in­ter­na­tion­al brand but with the sec­tor tak­ing a tremen­dous hit from the pan­dem­ic they set­tled on the build­ing be­ing a mix of res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial spaces which is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed with­in the next two years.

Lo­cat­ed op­po­site the pic­turesque view of the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah with its blos­som­ing poui, tow­er­ing trees and end­less, lush green­ery, the en­tire piece of land which cost in ex­cess of $20 mil­lion com­pris­es 14,000 square feet.

On the build­ing spec­i­fi­ca­tions Yufe said the ten sto­ries will in­cor­po­rate base­ment park­ing with the ground floor hav­ing a re­tail com­po­nent as well as ad­di­tion­al park­ing.

“Then there are two ad­di­tion­al floors of park­ing. Then there are three lev­els of what we hope to be com­mer­cial space and three lev­els of apart­ments.

“We have not de­cid­ed how many apart­ments yet. But ini­tial­ly we felt we would go for small units that would cater to young pro­fes­sion­als or ex­pa­tri­ates work­ing in the area with the oil com­pa­nies or with the em­bassies and so on,” Yufe ex­plained.

How­ev­er, he said there have been some changes to that orig­i­nal plan.

Ac­cord­ing to Yufe, they are now look­ing for “more per­ma­nent-type own­ers or ten­ants” which may re­quire a lease or even con­do­mini­ums.

“We have not yet de­cid­ed but the clien­tèle is go­ing to be peo­ple who do not want to fight traf­fic. Peo­ple who want to live in Port-of-Spain and have a view of a mag­nif­i­cent Sa­van­nah or gulf at the rear and that’s what the build­ing will look like,” Yufe fur­ther ex­plained.

But each of the three floors could hold an es­ti­mat­ed four apart­ments, Achong Low said, adding that they have al­ready re­ceived re­quests for res­i­den­tial spots.

How­ev­er, Yufe said these can­not be priced as yet giv­en sev­er­al fac­tors like costs of ma­te­ri­als, but when com­plet­ed, the val­ue will be in line with the mar­ket dic­tates at that time.

“But ob­vi­ous­ly the lo­ca­tion is such and the qual­i­ty is such that they are not go­ing to be cheap. They are go­ing to be up­per-end,” he said, not­ing that the build­ing’s orig­i­nal fea­ture lends it­self to a lot of glass, even on the res­i­den­tial lev­els.

But Yufe said this may be sub­ject to change, de­pend­ing on what the con­sumer wants in the fi­nal analy­sis and how the build­ing evolves dur­ing the con­struc­tion process.

T&T’s econ­o­my how­ev­er, is still re­cov­er­ing from the neg­a­tive ef­fects of COVID-19 but Achong Low and Yufe say they re­main re­silient de­spite on-go­ing chal­lenges with sup­ply chains and glob­al lo­gis­tic is­sues and that the project will be suc­cess­ful.

“We need steel, and we need con­crete, and we need every thing else at which the prices are very un­sta­ble. The sup­ply line is al­so con­tract­ed. De­liv­ery times are al­so ex­tend­ed. So we are hop­ing against all odds that we are able to do this eco­nom­i­cal­ly.

“If we don’t do this to­day, we are not young fel­las, we will nev­er do it. It is some­thing we want to do so re­gard­less of cost, we are go­ing ahead with it and we hope it will work it­self out in the long term. We are do­ing this on good faith and on the abil­i­ty of the econ­o­my to re­cov­er,” Yufe said.

Apart from op­ti­mism, Achong Low and Yufe have vast busi­ness ex­pe­ri­ence, not on­ly from do­ing joint projects but both com­ing from recog­nised busi­ness fam­i­lies. Achong Low from Sing Chong Su­per­mar­ket at Char­lotte Street and with Yufe’s fam­i­ly be­ing a leader in fab­rics, as well as soft home fur­nish­ings in T&T.

Achong Low and his fam­i­ly are al­so own­ers of Cha­co­nia Home and Events Cen­tre lo­cat­ed in Mar­aval.

While it was pre­dom­i­nate­ly a ho­tel, Achong Low said that busi­ness mod­el has been al­tered.

“The pan­dem­ic cause a bit of con­trac­tion on the in­dus­try but we are now be­gin­ning to open up. We will con­cen­trate on events, se­nior cit­i­zens liv­ing and gen­er­al work space area,” Achong Low who per­formed the first suc­cess­ful de­liv­ery of male con­joined twins in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean added.

He al­so led the team that sep­a­rat­ed them.

Apart from The Grand Sa­van­nah, Achong Low and Yufe are al­so in­volved in oth­er on­go­ing con­struc­tion ini­tia­tives.

For in­stance, Yufe said they are build­ing com­mer­cial and ware­hous­ing space in San Juan.

“This is a larg­er project than what we do nor­mal­ly. We are build­ing 60,000 square feet of new ware­house space on the El So­cor­ro Road and that should be com­plet­ed by the end of this month.

“It cost a lot more to build to­day than it did five years ago but we con­tin­ued de­spite the price,” Yufe said.

He al­so not­ed that the ware­house, up­on com­ple­tion, will prob­a­bly cost about 30 per cent more than did a few years ago.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Achong Low said the feed­back from the con­trac­tors who bid on the project was that in the past three to four months steel alone, ap­pre­ci­at­ed by about 30 per cent.

“At this point in time there’s noth­ing on the hori­zon which says it will de­pre­ci­ate; maybe even go up,” he said.

Achong Low and Yufe al­so built Yet­Sol Mall at the cor­ner of Queen and Char­lotte Streets, which was in ho­n­our of both their fa­thers.

“My fa­ther was Yet Chung Low and Boris’ dad was Solomon Yufe so we com­bined the name,” Achong Low ex­plained.

Yet­Sol Mall was lat­er sold.

They al­so did Plaza-47 at Fred­er­ick Street, Port-of-Spain which has been leased by the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice since 2015.

So what’s on the hori­zon for Achong Low ad Yufe?

Re­fer­ring to The Grand Sa­van­nah, Yufe said they are look­ing for sim­i­lar in­vest­ments to de­vel­op.

“We are look­ing for prop­er­ties of this type in Port-of-Spain in par­tic­u­lar. As long as the Gov­ern­ment is re­spon­sive we have the abil­i­ty to do it, both on a rep­utable and on a fi­nan­cial ba­sis. There’s no re­stric­tion in those terms.

“Our feel­ing is we are in the riv­er and we must swim re­gard­less of the cur­rent and re­gard­less of the tide. We have faith in the coun­try and peo­ple and the mar­ket will tell us what we are able to do when the project (The Grand Sa­van­nah) is done,” Yufe added.