Unlock The Full Value Of Your Waterfront Property
Here at Ushombi we are always thinking of ways we can make the platform more valuable and enhance the overall user experience, not just for the potential home buyer but also the agent, lawyer, lender and custom home builder.
We have partnered with a coastal engineering firm, Smith Warner International based in Kingston, Jamaica.
In this blog “Unlock The Full Value Of Your Waterfront Property” we are going to dive into ways Smith Warner International can benefit you as a villa owner or developer.
About Smith Warner International
Unlock The Full Value Of Your Waterfront Property
Smith Warner International specializes in the Caribbean. They plan, design, and build each project with expertise that only decades of experience and a long roster of successes can guarantee. They have experience all around the Caribbean and can help governments to individual home owners design, plan and build their desired project.
Smith Warner International has completed projects in Barbados, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Lucia, The Bahamas, and Turks and Caicos.
Smith Warner International specializes in beach creation, marinas & waterfront development, shoreline protection, docks and jetties, dredging and piling, and civil works and drainage. They have worked with villa owners, governments, resorts and marinas in order to accomplish their goals.
According to their website “Our mission always is to value our motivated and inspired team and to listen attentively to our clients so that we may develop and use the best tools and cutting-edge techniques in our engineering and construction practice. We aim to continue providing solutions for the coastal environment, satisfying the needs of multiple stakeholders while building resilience to protect all. Through care and commitment, we foster community and attract clients and partners who share our vision. We care because the Caribbean is our home.”
The home is a place where you spend most of your time. A home that has a beach and is located on the coast can increase its property value. Beaches are a popular place for people to live and vacation. The sound of the waves, the smell of the ocean, and the beautiful sunsets make for a relaxing environment. As more people move to coastal areas, property values rise in these regions.
In order to accommodate this growth in population, coastal engineering has become an important field of study. There are many different ways that engineers can help add value to your home by building a beach or adding a beach to your home.
If you are looking to build a beach on your property, map a hazardous area, build a marina or any other marine based project, then feel free to reach out to Corinne Smith, Proposals & Presentation Manager. You can reach out to Corinne on LinkedIn here.
Corinne has worked with Smith Warner International since its start in 1995. She has worked in all areas of the company except engineering and has seen it grow from 2.5 to our current team of 40. Having lived in the Caribbean for more than 20 years she understands the delights and challenges of island life. In her current role as Proposals Manager, she makes sure client wishes, deadlines and budget are clear so that we can meet and exceed expectations.
Check out this beautiful piece of luxury real estate in Turks and Caicos
This beachfront lot is a great place to build your dream home in TCI
Creating Beaches
Unlock The Full Value Of Your Waterfront Property
People often ask me what I do for a living, and I’ve given the same answer for 25 years: we create beaches. We can make them anywhere, but we need to respect and understand the coastal environment. Careful study of its power and patterns guides the creation of sustainable beaches that would take lifetimes to form naturally.
“Adding a beach to your waterfront property could double its value.” The late Rory Marsh, well-known in the Jamaican real estate scene, told me that. The good news is that building a beach is not as far-fetched as it sounds.
The physical nature of your shoreline will dictate what can be achieved. If you already have something of a beach, but it’s unstable or rocky, you could replenish it with beautiful sand and protect it with hard or soft interventions. Soft interventions could mean restoring dunes, adding sand with the right grain size, or improving water quality for natural regrowth of corals.
Hard interventions could be submerged reef-like boulder structures or emergent rock groynes, breakwaters or revetments. Any intervention will have to be thoughtfully designed to protect the beautiful ocean view, the sensitive marine environment, and your neighbours.
One recent project that used a mix of hard and soft solutions is the shoreline at Rockhouse Resort in the Turks and Caicos Islands. The beach there had a long history of fluctuating between wide, medium and narrow. The client wanted a beach that remained wide all year round to accommodate 30-40 loungers for resort guests, along with a jetty for water sports.
You can find Smith Warner International here on Ushombi’s Resources page. Be sure to check out all of our resources throughout the Caribbean.
Mike Fenimore has many properties throughout TCI, contact Mike today for the best properties in TCI.
Jamaica Project
Unlock The Full Value Of Your Waterfront Property
If your shoreline is low-lying and rocky, a cove beach might be your best bet. To do this we take a giant’s bite out of your rocky shoreline to create a sheltered cove. The excavated area is then nourished with sand or allowed to naturally seed. Several villas on Jamaica’s north coast enjoy personal pocket beaches made this way. The photos below show one of the cove beach projects in Jamaica we’re working on right now.
The top photo is a Google image of the shoreline before we started. It’s rocky and pitted (known locally as ironshore), and not at all a comfortable beach experience. The image on the bottom is a drone image from roughly the same vantage point part way through the construction process. The final waterfront will include two sandy beaches, protected on either side by revetments and separated by a T-shaped groyne with grassy recreational space at its base.
This beachfront lot is a great place to build your dream home
By removing 1m (~ 3 feet) of rock from the surface of the ironshore, we are creating a safe swimming area that will be backed by 16m (50 feet) of sandy beach. The structures were all carefully designed to ensure good water circulation within the cove areas.
Google Earth image of ironshore waterfront on Jamaica’s north coast
Twin beach coves under construction at the site in the Google Earth image above
If your property is backed by high cliffs, we may need to build outward, creating value in the nearshore through protective structures that can also be used for boat docks, boardwalks, and gazebos. One great example of this is a project we completed in 2019 on the north coast of Jamaica near Ocho Rios. The property originally had a steep cliff face leading down to a rocky coast.
Here is a great real estate deal in TCI!
Be sure to check out Ushombi’s blog for more information about purchasing real estate in the Caribbean and for helpful tips and the questions you should be asking.
If you want to build your dream home in TCI then check out our new blog with some great tips!
Turks and Caicos Projects
Unlock The Full Value Of Your Waterfront Property
We designed a solution that included two buried armour stone groynes to protect the beach during storms, a timber jetty on top of one of the jetties for water sports, and a wide, protected sandy beach. You can see the new beach and the rest of that beautiful beachfront property here.
One recent project that used a mix of hard and soft solutions is the shoreline at Rockhouse Resort in the Turks and Caicos Islands. The beach there had a long history of fluctuating between wide, medium and narrow. The client wanted a beach that remained wide all year round to accommodate 30-40 loungers for resort guests, along with a jetty for water sports.
Check out all of Ushombi’s TCI real estate here!
We designed a solution that included two buried armour stone groynes to protect the beach during storms, a timber jetty on top of one of the jetties for water sports, and a wide, protected sandy beach.
Image from Tripadvisor
Unlock The Full Value Of Your Waterfront Property
The owners wanted a usable beach area with easy access. The solution (which we also built) included coral transplanting (to ensure their survival), a composite groyne (i.e. reinforced concrete retaining wall flanked by layers of core and armour stone), a timber deck with a gazebo on the composite groyne, placing fill and marine sand to create a beachfront, and a smaller rubble groyne to help keep the newly created beach in place. You can see the waterfront (and the rest of this lovely property) here.
If you haven’t been to Turks and Caicos then you are missing out on one of the gems of the Caribbean. The weather in Turks and Caicos is tropical all year long, plus the beaches in Turks and Caicos are some of the most beautiful in the world. There are so many things to do in Turks and Caicos. Snorkeling, deep sea fishing, sunset catamaran cruises and island tours.
This beautiful beachfront villa is a real gem, don’t pass on this wonderful opportunity in TCI.
One of Smith Warner International’s current projects is taking place in Turks and Caicos, South Bank Waterfront Development. You can see a list of their current projects on their website.
Daniel Echague can help you get the best real estate in Miami…contact him today!
Tips to Unlock The Full Value Of Your Waterfront Property
Your new beach should result in a net gain in the health of your shoreline’s ecosystem. With careful consideration of impacts and meaningful mitigation strategies, the required environmental approvals are well within your reach.
Sun, sea and a sandy beach will ensure your Caribbean waterfront property reaps maximum returns. But smart investments in your waterfront property aren’t just about the money, are they?
Jamel Banton is a Coastal Engineer and the Managing Director at Smith Warner International Limited.
Lets check out some photos and quick info about some other projects around the Caribbean that Smith Warner International has completed.
Palymra Resort Beach
Unlock The Full Value Of Your Waterfront Property
The Palmyra Resort and Spa, rebranded in 2017 as Jewel Grande Montego Bay, is a 277-suite property comprised of three buildings and vast amenities on 16 waterfront acres. The developers engaged Smith Warner to create a sheltered swimmable area and a more inviting, sandy beach.
Smith Warner dredged the nearshore area to create a zone for swimming, snorkeling, and watersports and widened the beach. To protect guests and the beach itself from wave action, our coastal engineers designed and built a series of breakwaters. Corals and seagrass were relocated and tagged prior to construction. We imported sand from The Bahamas giving the beach its impressive texture and color.
If you are looking for real estate in the Bahamas be sure to contact Alex Thompson
Before you purchase any property in the Caribbean make sure you check out our Property Vetting Guide.
Port St. Charles
Design and Construction Supervision of Marina and Beach Creation at Iconic Resort
Unlock The Full Value Of Your Waterfront Property
The Port St Charles Marina was developed between 1995-2000 and represents one of the most iconic resort/marina/beach developments in the Caribbean. Smith Warner designed the marine and coastal components of this development including: creation of a lagoon with assisted water circulation; construction of an offshore breakwater to provide berthing for mega-yachts; creation of two distinct beach zones, with the southern zone protected by submerged breakwaters; and the design and construction of a sand bypass system to prevent beach erosion.
Unlock The Full Value Of Your Waterfront Property
We hope you enjoyed our blog “Unlock The Full Value Of Your Waterfront Property”. Be sure to check out their downloadable PDF “Investing in Your Waterfront Property” We are always striving to provide all parties involved in Caribbean real estate the most value we possibly can. That’s one of our goals here at Ushombi, to become the most valuable platform for Caribbean real estate in the world. We hope you received some value out of “Unlock The Full Value Of Your Waterfront Property”.
We are happy to answer any questions you may have about purchasing Caribbean real estate or enhancing your property. Feel free to drop us email anytime.
Unlock The Full Value Of Your Waterfront Property
