For decades, KingAlarm has been in the business of protecting Jamaican property. Now the Azar family wants to build some of it.
Under the name Azar Developments, the family-owned security company is preparing an ambitious move into real estate, with 10 projects planned and prime sites already acquired across Kingston, St Ann and several of the capital’s most expensive neighbourhoods.
The opening act is an eight-storey residential tower in Ocho Rios containing 62 apartments. Yet the building itself may only be part of the story.
The proposed development will occupy approximately two acres beside PROVEN Properties’ recently completed SOL Harbour. Azar has also acquired an adjoining 2.5-acre parcel, bringing its reported landholding at the location to approximately 4.5 acres in an increasingly valuable part of Ocho Rios.
For now, there are no announced plans for those additional 2.5 acres. But in property development, what remains unbuilt can sometimes be as interesting as what appears on the drawings.
A New Neighbour for SOL Harbour
The proposed tower will contain 36 studios, 20 two-bedroom apartments and six three-bedroom residences, according to KingAlarm Managing Director John Azar Sr. Every apartment is planned with a balcony and ocean view.
Its neighbour provides an interesting benchmark.
SOL Harbour comprises 152 residences in two seven-storey towers — 140 studios and 12 two-bedroom apartments — and was marketed heavily towards the diaspora, second-home purchasers and buyers seeking income from short-term rentals.
By April, when homeowners were formally welcomed to the completed development, PROVEN said fewer than five units remained.
Prices also demonstrate just how far the Ocho Rios apartment market has travelled. Earlier this year, the Financial Gleaner reported a SOL Harbour unit at around US$324,000, or approximately J$52 million.
Azar has not published prices for its development.
What it has done is position itself beside a project that has already tested the appetite of precisely the purchasers it intends to pursue.
The proposed Azar building will also reach eight storeys — one higher than the neighbouring SOL Harbour towers.
Ocho Rios, it seems, is growing upwards.
The Diaspora Buyer
Azar Sr has made clear that Jamaicans overseas are central to the project, alongside local buyers seeking a north-coast residence or “home-away-from-home”.
There is sound logic behind that.
The contemporary Jamaican holiday home is increasingly expected to perform several jobs. It can be somewhere to spend Christmas, somewhere to retire to eventually, somewhere for relatives to stay and, where permitted, somewhere capable of generating rental income while its owner is in London, Toronto, New York or Miami.
That gives developers access to purchasers whose incomes are earned in stronger currencies, while Ocho Rios offers an established tourism economy, beaches, restaurants, attractions and reasonable access to Ian Fleming International Airport.
It is a rather different proposition from building housing purely around Jamaican salaries.
When the Security Company Designs the Building
KingAlarm also arrives with an unusual advantage.
Security systems in residential developments can sometimes feel like items added once the architects, engineers and builders have largely finished their work.
Azar wants to reverse that process.
The company’s background means cameras, access systems, automated locks, alarms, infrastructure and home automation can potentially be considered while the building is still lines on a drawing rather than holes being drilled into finished walls.
For diaspora purchasers leaving apartments vacant for months at a time, that could become more than a marketing flourish.
The crucial question will be execution. “Integrated security” sounds impressive on a brochure. Buyers will ultimately judge whether it produces a genuinely better building.
Seven Homes on Millsborough
If Ocho Rios is the larger statement, Millsborough Avenue is the more intimate one.
Azar Developments plans just seven townhouses, each containing four bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms and a private swimming pool.
The company says it deliberately chose not to squeeze the maximum possible number of residences onto the land, preferring more landscaping, common areas and parking.
That is almost countercultural in high-value urban development, where an unused square metre can begin to look suspiciously like money left on the table.
But scarcity is itself a luxury.
Millsborough Avenue is already firmly established at the premium end of Kingston’s residential market. Existing developments include GIAU and The Camden, where a two-bedroom residence was recently marketed at approximately J$95 million.
There is no announced Azar price, and attempting to manufacture one would be speculation. Four bedrooms, private pools and seven residences, however, leave little mystery about the intended end of the market.
Ten Projects, Not Two
The greater significance is that Millsborough and Ocho Rios are merely projects one and two.
KingAlarm says it has spent roughly five years acquiring prime real estate and now has 10 developments planned.
Property has been accumulated in Norbrook, Barbican Road, Lady Musgrave Road, Drax Hall and Kingston’s Golden Triangle, alongside the two announced locations.
The company expects to keep at least two projects active simultaneously over the next three to four years.
At that point this ceases to look like a security company experimenting with property and begins to resemble the arrival of another serious Jamaican developer.
The expansion also has a generational element. John Azar Jr, 24, is expected to assume a leading role in the development operation, with the wider Azar family involved in its planning and design.
Building With Cash
Then there is the money.
Azar Sr says the projects are expected to be financed predominantly from internally generated cash flow, rather than leaning heavily on traditional construction finance.
No development cost has been disclosed, and an eight-storey residential building is hardly an inexpensive undertaking.
But reducing borrowing costs can give a developer considerable breathing room. Interest does not particularly care whether it is raining, approvals are delayed or apartments have sold. It simply keeps accumulating.
Internal funding could therefore offer Azar greater flexibility over construction and sales.
It does not, of course, make concrete, steel, labour, land or imported finishes cheap. Those bills remain stubbornly real.
First, the Approvals
There is an important dose of reality amid the ambition.
The projects remain pending approval.
Azar hopes to obtain the necessary permissions and begin construction around late September, with its first development targeted for completion in the latter part of 2027.
As of August 7, no public sales launch or official price schedule has been identified for either project.
That distinction matters. These are announced developments, not yet completed facts.
Ocho Rios Is Becoming Something Different
Nevertheless, the direction of travel is difficult to miss.
SOL Harbour has delivered another 152 apartments into Ocho Rios. Azar proposes 62 more immediately beside it. Drax Hall continues expanding, while residential, tourism and commercial investment spreads along the St Ann corridor.
The old distinction between the north coast’s hotels for foreigners and homes for Jamaicans is steadily dissolving.
Second homes, Airbnb investment, retirement property, diaspora ownership and ordinary residential occupation increasingly occupy the same buildings.
Azar has evidently noticed.
A company that built its reputation protecting Jamaican property has accumulated land and is preparing to construct it instead.
And perhaps the most tantalising clue to what comes next isn’t the proposed eight-storey tower at all.
It is the 2.5 acres sitting beside it.
For the moment, that land has no announced project.
In development, empty ground rarely remains without an idea for very long.
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9 Comments
Interesting move — didn’t expect the security company to pivot into development, but it actually makes sense. They’ve already got land locked down for the first two projects in Kingston and Ocho Rios, with eight more in the pipeline, and the managing director says they’ve been quietly acquiring prime real estate for the past five years or so.
It’s interesting seeing a security company move this aggressively into development — usually it’s the other way around, developers bolting on security after the fact. Curious what readers make of KingAlarm’s diaspora focus specifically: is this the kind of buyer confidence signal the market needed, or does it risk pricing out local buyers in Ocho Rios and Kingston?
What we find most interesting here isn’t the tower itself, it’s the sequencing. Azar is opening with Millsborough’s seven low-density townhouses and the Ocho Rios high-rise at the same time, which reads like a company testing both ends of the premium market before committing further. Financing the pipeline mostly from internal cash flow is also a notable departure from how a lot of Jamaican development gets built right now. If it holds up through 10 projects, that’s a genuinely different risk profile than the debt-heavy model we’re used to seeing strain during rate hikes. What do readers think matters more for a first-time developer entering at this scale — the capital structure, or actually delivering project one on the promised 2027 timeline?
This is an interesting expansion, particularly because established Jamaican companies can bring local knowledge and long-term commitment to development. The real test will be in the execution: sensible pricing, quality construction and projects that strengthen the surrounding communities rather than simply occupying them.
The security-first design angle is what stood out to me here. So many towers treat access control and cameras as an afterthought bolted on after the concrete’s already poured, and it shows in how clunky those systems end up. If Azar actually builds that in from the design phase, that’s a real differentiator for diaspora buyers who might have a unit sitting empty for months at a time. Curious to see if the other 8 projects follow the same “less density, more amenity” approach they’re using on Millsborough, or if that’s specific to the high-end townhouse product.
Private investment is important, but Jamaica cannot build mainly for the people who already have wealth. Developers with strong local roots should consider how mixed-income projects, smaller units and realistic payment structures could give working Jamaicans a genuine path into ownership. The market needs profitable development, but it also needs homes that nurses, teachers, police officers and tradespeople can afford.
The usual response is that private developers must follow demand, but planning decisions and public incentives help create that demand. If a project receives concessions, should affordable units be a condition rather than a charitable gesture?
It is encouraging to see a Jamaican company reinvesting locally and thinking beyond its original industry. The real test will be whether the development improves the surrounding area as well as the company’s balance sheet. Good design, sensible infrastructure and genuine community engagement should all be part of that ambition.
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