Barita Investments Limited has demolished two landmark Kingston properties and hired a global development executive to lead their redevelopment, in what the Gleaner described as the clearest signal yet that the investment group intends to become a real estate developer in its own right, not just a financial backer of other peoples projects.
Demolition is complete at the former Kingston Ice Factory site and adjacent lands on Harbour Street in downtown Kingston, and at the former Eden Gardens hotel site in New Kingston. Both are now cleared and positioned for construction. A third property in the wider portfolio has reached an advanced planning stage, though the company has not yet named it publicly.
Barita chairman Mark Myers framed the milestone in deliberately financial language: the moves accelerate the platforms transition from mark-to-market appreciation towards a project-based, cash-generative return profile, underpinned by disciplined capital deployment. Stripped of the finance-speak, the point is straightforward: Barita is moving from simply holding land and waiting for its value to rise, to actually building on it and generating income from what gets built.
Downtown Kingston and New Kingston have both seen sporadic redevelopment interest for years without a single anchor project clearly leading the way. A well-capitalised investment group clearing two sites simultaneously, one in the old commercial harbour district, one in the newer commercial core, is a meaningful test of whether that interest can translate into finished buildings rather than more cleared lots waiting for the next announcement.
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