economy

At the outset, there was a solemn declaration that the Trump Ocean Club in Panama is not an intellectual property theft from the architects of Dubai's famous Burj Al Arab hotel. All architecture is derivative, and one building does not have to be very different from another to defeat a lawsuit, but if the building in Panama is, legally speaking, not a knockoff of the one in Dubai, it certainly has been marketed as such by a number of Panama's real estate vendors.

The pretty pictures, however, conceal the context. The reality is that the Trump Ocean Club is going up on a little dead-end street among several other tall buildings, and thus won't look as it has been hyped. When it is done and for some time afterwards, the infrastructure shortcomings will not be as obvious as they will get --- there are few buyers of upscale Panama City condos, and a healthy percentage of those few do not intend to actually live in the places, so the traffic jams on a small street lined with mostly unoccupied buildings will not be as bad as they will get if and when the market changes and those buildings start to fill up with people who live in them.

The Trump Ocean Club's developer is not Donald Trump, but a Colombian who has leased the use of the Trump name. The project's official website, which is dated 2009, does not give a date for when the place will be ready for occupancy. In 2006 the promoters were selling units with a promise that they would be ready in 2009, but now, gazing from across the street and watching what's going in and out in the middle of 2010, the place does not look like its opening will be tomorrow or the day after.  However, we can be reasonably certain that it will be completed and the units will be luxurious. How lucrative of a real estate deal it may be will vary according to perspectives, with the final pronouncements far into the future for most of those involved.