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The Kirana South Padre High-rise Condo Reservations and Interest is Hot

The newly announced Kirana high-rise condos on South Padre Island are getting a lot of interest and the available units are going fast. Check out the price and unit availability list below. We are getting a great response to the project. Let's hope the project gets off the ground!

For more information on Kirana South Padre click here

Since the reservations are fully refundable, it is not much of a gamble at this point to make a reservation, when it comes time to commit to an actual contract and funding, we'll let you know about any risks we see in the project and contracts.

The project is is planned by a group we know from Mexico, but is without U.S. company representation, so we think your safest bet is to obtain buyer representation from a local Realtor. From what we can see so far, the project appears to be legitimate. Call us and find out more details.

Comments

Magarita Man @ Sunday, August 23, 2009 9:47 PM

Wow, it looks like well over half the project has already been sold! I wonder if this is for real, or whether it's just the developer playing smoke & mirrors. If it's for real, this developer REALLY has his act together, and hit the sweet spot in the market. Now all he has to do is figure out how to build such a massive structure on our friendly little sand bar. Good luck to all you lucky new condo owners! Such a high level of interest in such a pitiful economy strongly suggests significant future price appreciation for you new owners. You can't argue with success. (What went wrong at Sapphire?)

Island looker @ Tuesday, August 25, 2009 1:52 PM

What went wrong at Sapphire? Take a look at a picture of the developer:

http://www.sapphiresouthpadre.com/developer.html

Would you buy a condo from a developer who posts a picture of himself on his own website wearing ragged jeans making himself look like a disoriented drunk with a half empty glass of wine? I wonder how many potential buyers took one look at that picture and decided to buy a Kirana condo.

Island Hippy @ Friday, September 04, 2009 4:27 PM

Yay! Another skyscraper to replace the actual sky with. Let's hope they get a better "footing" than the ever impressive Ocean Tower.

I found this comment on the Sapphire page "elegant living spaces for the affluent" because.... the island is just chock full of the affluent.

Interested party @ Sunday, September 06, 2009 7:32 PM

I seriously doubt if this new building will have a foundation problem. The developers aren't stupid; they know EXACTLY what went wrong with Ocean Towers. The problem with Ocean Towers is they didn't dig the foundation peers deep enough. Later investigation revealed that below the foundation peers is a layer of expansive clay which they didn't previously know existed. The layer of clay is what caused the foundation to sink. A civil engineer will tell you that it is actually quite safe to put a tall building into nothing but sand, as long as it's done right. But you don't build a heavy building on top of expansive clay.

That said, there is still some risk here. This is a huge building, and it is not symetrical. That worries me. There is no telling exactly how much research and effort the developer will put into the foundation, and unless you're a civil engineer with experience in this area, you'll never be able to judge the adequacy of the developer's planning/work. Also keep in mind that these developers always want to keep costs to a minimum, because their profit depends upon it, so it's a tricky situation. On the other hand you can be sure the developers don't want to lose their reputation over a failed project, so in critical areas like the foundation they're probably going to take the conservative approach.

My advice would be to buy your condo through Alice Donahue, instead of trying to deal with the developer directly. In the event that something ugly does happen, you definitely want a realtor on your side to help you get your money back. Needless to say, Alice has experience with this type of situation, and has been proven trustworthy.

Aging bald guy @ Sunday, September 06, 2009 9:58 PM

With all due respect, I think I see things much differently through my own crystal ball. Those Kirana condos have been selling like hotcakes, and that didn't go unnoticed. I bet in the coming months they announce a plan to redesign the building, and offer refunds for anybody who doesn't want to stay aboard. Just a few months of delay is all it would take. The new design will "finish" the building, in other words fill in the upper south corner that looked like it got wiped out with a wrecking ball. A nice rectangular building, with the maximum # of condos per square foot, like most of the large buildings on this island. Not a major design, just finish filling in the void. Most owners don't care about what the outside of the building looks like. They care more about what THEIR condo looks like on the inside, the view, amenities, etc. For some strange reason this developer hit the sweet spot, and I doubt if it was because of the outside building appearance. Imagine selling so many high end condos so fast in such a soft economy! They would be foolish if they don't milk this piece of property for all it is worth. The island is small and opportunities like this don't come along very often for developers.

Interested party @ Tuesday, September 08, 2009 10:07 PM

Again, I seriously doubt if the foundation on this new building will be a problem. Here are the Ocean Towers facts to support that conclusion:

- The Ocean Towers foundation piers went down only 95 feet
- The expandable clay layer was later determined to reside between 120 and 190 feet deep
- The heaviest parts of the building sunk the most, which created the uneven sinking and cracking.
- The lighter weight parking garage sunk only about an inch or two, while the much heavier central part of the tower sunk up to 16 inches. (or at least those were the numbers at the time of the original lawsuit, it's probably worse now)

In other words, they now know exactly why that tower started sinking and leaning, and what they should have done in the first place. Do you really think another developer would risk their reputation repeating such a mistake? No way! Kirana is probably going to have the most solid foundation of any building on the island. I'll even bet you that some of the older high rises on the island have also settled into expandable clay beneath their foundations, but since the settling was more evenly distributed, and not as pronounced, nobody has since noticed or investigated. (From a structural integrity standpoint, it probably doesn't matter much either)

I also know of one geological engineer who is convinced that much of the Texas gulf coast is slowly sinking because we're pumping more water out of the underground aquifers than nature is replacing. That also is one of the reasons we're slowly losing our barrier islands.

Geology is a fascinating subject, ain't it? Homeowners shouldn't be concerned with stuff like this. Just ask for a good foundation guarantee in your original sales contract, and let the developer assume all the responsibility.

Island Hippy @ Friday, September 11, 2009 11:44 AM

Sounds familiar, yes, the age old "Leaning Tower of Pisa" argument still being carried on to this day....

A quick google search turned up people making the same "clay" argument about the 800 year old tower.

----------------------------------------------------
When are loans going to be modified to take into account global warming and the fact that most scientists believe the oceans will rise 3-4 feet regardless of what we do now to reduce the effects of global warming.

Interested Party @ Saturday, September 12, 2009 2:54 PM

Island hippy,

IMHO, you worry about all the wrong stuff! At the current rate of sea rise, it will be many decades before you can put a boat dock in front of those beachfront condos. As long as the local government has the political willpower and resources, they can continue to annually renurish the beaches with that smelly & dirty sandy dredge material for almost as long as they want. Really, I don't see those beaches washing completely away anytime soon. The island economy depends upon them too much for our local government to allow them to be neglected for too long.

The way I see it, the real risk to building on SPI is hurricanes. Remember when Dolly hit you could go fishing on Padre Blvd, and the Red Cross was handing out emergency supplies in the Schlitterbahn parking lot? Fortunately we got hit by the "clean" side of that storm. But without a sea wall this island is especially vulnerable to storm surges, even minor ones. Even though Ike hit the Houston area hundreds of miles away, the resulting storm surge still flooded many SPI streets. Further up the coast Port Bolivar had an estimated storm surge of 20 feet, and the resulting backwash pretty much wiped it off the map. That was only a category 2 hurricane, and I don't think the dunes here on SPI are any better than what they had up there.

Seriously, can anybody imagine what a comparable 20 foot storm surge on the NORTH side of Dolly would have done to this island? Your insurance might pay to get your windows and roof replaced, but if much of the island's infrastructure is washed away, that beachfront condo isn't going to do you or anybody else much good.

Please don't get too caught up in all the logical risk assessments. After all, this is THE ISLAND, the most beautiful place in the world. This place has its share of problems, but once you check out the swarm of bikinis during spring break, you will never want to live anywhere else.

History Professor @ Sunday, September 13, 2009 9:59 PM

After a hurricane wiped out about 1/3 of Galveston in 1900, under the direction of Henry Martyn Robert, they literally raised the island by about 8 feet - and built the existing 17 foot seawall. Since then, that same massive seawall has saved the island from severe damage many times.

I doubt if such a project would be practical for South Padre. Raising the island 8 feet would turn the first floor of most buildings into underground basements, and cost billions of dollars to implement. One could argue that such a plan may seem prudent after the next huge hurricane destroys a significant amount of the existing buildings on the island, but I don't think we'll ever raise the island like that. As long as there is land left after the next big hurricane, insurance money will pay to rebuild/repair to original condition, just as happened after Dolly. Even so, it might be prudent to enact new building codes which specifies that all new structures have their first floors located at least 20 feet above sea level.

Cindy G. @ Friday, September 18, 2009 6:50 AM

Beulah hit South Padre in 1967. Island winds hit 136 mph, w/ 18 to 20 foot storm surge. Karina HAS to be built very solid, or they couldn't build it here.

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