James Whitmee

I am in Santo Domingo in Dominican Republic. I visited Haiti about two months ago. Although both countries share the same island they are poles apart. Dominican Republic is very much US-facing with shops including Cartier and Louis Vuitton, and Haiti is third-world and could be 1,000 miles away.

The office market in Santo Domingo is quite expensive with quoting rents up to $28-30 /sq m /month and freeholds at $2,700-3,000 /sq m (horizontal ownerships in towers is common). This is not so very different from Port-au-Prince where I was seeing $20-25 /sq m /month, although scarcity and the earthquake were driving that. However, I have been surprised by the generally poor attention to Health & Safety in the design of office buildings here - even expensive new towers mostly only have one staircase. Also, the market is sluggish and prices achieved may be 15-30% less than quoted.

This morning I went for a walk and took these photos down on the sea-front and around the old colonial district.