Paul Buchanan, owner of Expert 2010, a six-year-old company. - File

BACKED BY a loan from Jamaica Development Bank (JDB) and equity partners in New York, Paul Buchanan, former housing official who has gone into business as a real estate developer, has taken on a billion-dollar project in Discovery Bay, St Ann, as his latest venture.

Buchanan's company, Experts 2010, has partnered with Discovery Development Limited in a joint venture to build Discovery Pointe Estate, a project that Buchanan said has a budget of $1 billion and is to be built in phases.

The land is provided by Discovery Development Limited, said Buchanan, who told the Financial Gleaner that the company is based in Queens, New York, and is owned by two lawyers of Jamaican back-ground, Dawn and Dennis Warren.

For overseas landowners

Additional financing has been secured from JDB - a $115 million loan at 18 per cent; and a 21 per cent overdraft facility from National Commercial Bank, said the developer.

"We link land owners - Jamaicans abroad who have lands and don't have the finance or the planning expertise," said Buchanan.

"We provide all of that for them. We plan these sites, develop them and we finance it."

Previous developments

Buchanan, when he was employed in the government service, worked with the Micro Investment Develop-ment Agency and later as a coordinator of the state's shelter programme Operation PRIDE.

His other projects as a business-man include developments at Benson Avenue in Cherry Gardens, St Andrew, and Cedar Court at Cedar Grove in St Catherine.

The Discovery Pointe project covers 8.85 hectares of land on which more than 60 housing units will be built in two phases.

Under phase one, 34 two and three-bedroom units will be placed on the market. Construction began last year, and delivery of the units is scheduled for May to September.

The second phase, comprising 30 four and five-bedroom units, are to be completed in mid-2009.

Unit prices

The units are priced at $12 million upwards for the two and three bedrooms and $30 million and upwards for the four and five-bedroom units.

At those prices, the development, if sold off, should gross at least $1.3 billion of revenue.

According to Buchanan, in an interview at the top of the month, at least 18 units were already sold.

dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com