QCOSTARICA – The “Nya” project began with construction on a 900-hectare site in Liberia Guanacaste, that aims to integrate a Marriot Courtyard hotel, an artificial beach-lake with crystal clear water, shops and a free zone.
The project is expected to generate some 600 direct jobs in the province of Guanacaste.
Located near the Guanacaste International Airport (LIR), completion of the first stage is expected by the end of 2023, with residential, commercial and entertainment venues.
Manuel Freer, CEO of Nya, confirmed that it already has environmental viability from SETENA.
Originally the site was to be the home of a Discovery theme park, a project that was announced some five years ago, in April 2017, when then President Luis Guillermo Solís (2014-2018) made the announcement through a video on social networks.
Solís cataloged the project as one of the “largest investments”, in the tune of one billion dollars, for Costa Rica in the province of Guanacaste.
Five years later, on Monday, March 14, President Carlos Alvarado announced that Ciudad Nya (Nya City) will be the name of the mixed-use project, with an investment of some US$100 million dollars for the first stage.
Why the big change?
Freer explained that when the partnership with Discovery was announced, they planned to build a theme park, as it was reported in the country at the time.
“Discovery, for their business reasons, decided not to continue with the Costa Rica project, but instead to focus on entertainment content. From there, we decided to put another spin on the project and plan it based on what it is today,” Freer explained.
Ileana Rodríguez, director of Ciudad Nya, explained that when the Discovery project was announced, the franchise for the use of the name of the American entertainment chain had been negotiated.
The new mixed-use initiative is made up of the developer group Ciudad Nya GTE S.A. and Nya Development GTE Ltda. The partners of the Nya project are Grupo Do It, and Urban Partners as co-developers.
The full development of Nya City be over the next two decades, with a total investment of US$1.2 billion dollars, according to Freer.
