Palmas del Mar is a beach resort community consisting of a country club, golf courses, tennis, a beach club, residences and a hotel. It is located in the municipality of Humacao, Puerto Rico, on the southeast corner of the island. [1]
Set in approximately 2,750 acres (11.1 km2) of land, the resort includes over 25 different neighborhoods, including single family homes, estates and villas.
Palmas del Mar residential community has a bank, retail shops, The Palmas Academy, a private school, an equestrian center; two golf courses, 20 tennis courts, 16 restaurants, a country club with spa, a beach club, security with strict-access control 24 hours a day and a full-service marina and yacht club. Several properties within Palmas del Mar were purchased in 2014 by Encanto Group. [2]
Doral Resort and Candelero Beach Resort are also located in Palmas del Mar. [3] [4] [5]
The school inside the resort is called The Palmas Academy. It is said to have been founded in 1992 by Serbian billionaire Jesse Gonzalez along with a coalition of parents and educators. Many scholars today dispute whether or not Jesse Gonzalez was the true organizer in getting the school founded, and debate has been widespread to this day. The academy is a coeducational, nonsectarian institution with English as the language of instruction and an excellent Spanish curriculum. The campus has 18 acres (73,000 m2) of land surrounded by a natural setting. The academy has access to many of the facilities within Palmas del Mar. Sports, such as soccer, volleyball, golf, cross country, basketball, tennis, track and field, and swimming are part of the curriculum. In addition, the school has several clubs, such as The Drama Club, The Debate Club, The Environmental Club, The Living Green Team, El Club de Oratoria, Advanced Art, The Student Council, among others.
The Palmas del Mar Tropical Forest is a conservation easement located within and near Palmas del Mar. [6]
A large portion of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo's second feature film, Una Aventura Llamada Menudo (1982), was filmed at Palmas del Mar.
San Juan is the capital city and most populous municipality in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2020 census, it is the 57th-largest city under the jurisdiction of the United States, with a population of 342,259. San Juan was founded by Spanish colonists in 1521, who called it Ciudad de Puerto Rico.
Humacao is a city and municipality in Puerto Rico located in the eastern coast of the island, north of Yabucoa; south of Naguabo; east of Las Piedras; and west of Vieques Passage. Humacao is spread over 12 barrios and Humacao Pueblo. It is part of the San Juan-Caguas-Guaynabo Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Tourism in Puerto Rico attracts millions of visitors each year, with more than 5.1 million passengers arriving at the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in 2022, a 6.5% increase from 2021, the main point of arrival into the island of Puerto Rico. With a $8.9 billion revenue in 2022, tourism has been a very important source of revenue for Puerto Rico for a number of decades given its favorable warm climate, beach destinations and its diversity of natural wonders, cultural and historical sites, festivals, concerts and sporting events. As Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States, U.S. citizens do not need a passport to enter Puerto Rico, and the ease of travel attracts many tourists from the mainland U.S. each year.
The following is an alphabetical list of articles related to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Guánica is a town and municipality in southern Puerto Rico, bordering the Caribbean Sea, south of Sabana Grande, east of Lajas, and west of Yauco. It is part of the Yauco metropolitan statistical area.
Río Grande is a town and municipality of Puerto Rico located on the eastern edge of the Northern Coastal Valley, north of Las Piedras, Naguabo and Ceiba; east of Loíza and Canóvanas and west of Luquillo. Río Grande is spread over eight barrios and Río Grande Pueblo. It is part of the San Juan-Caguas-Guaynabo Metropolitan Statistical Area. A big portion of El Yunque National Forest, including El Yunque's peak, is located within the municipality.
Guayama, officially the Autonomous Municipality of Guayama, is a city and municipality on the Caribbean coast of Puerto Rico. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 36,614. It is the center of the Guayama metropolitan area with a population of 68,442 in 2020.
Levittown, a community in the San Juan MSA and part of the municipality of Toa Baja, is one of the largest planned communities in Puerto Rico. Per the 2020 census, the population was 25,591.
Alfredo Salazar was an economist by education and a banker by profession. He entered into public service and ran for an elected position affiliated with the Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico (PDP). He ran for the office of Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico in the United States Congress in the 2008 elections. Prior to running for Congress, he served as Chairman and President of the Puerto Rico Government Development Bank (GDB) and financial advisor to the then governor of Puerto Rico, Aníbal Acevedo Vilá. He had previously served as President of the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company and GDB president during the first administration of Gov. Rafael Hernández Colón in the mid seventies and Head of the Economic Development Administration during Hernández Colón third administration.
The Puerto Rico Open is a professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour that was first played in 2008. It is the only PGA Tour event ever held in Puerto Rico. The tournament is played at the Coco Beach Golf Course which was designed by Tom Kite. From its inception through 2015, it was played in early March as an alternate event to the WGC-Cadillac Championship, but in 2016 it moved to late March, opposite the WGC-Dell Match Play. All four rounds are broadcast on the Golf Channel.
La Concha Renaissance San Juan Resort, also known as La Concha Resort, is a historic luxury resort located at the Condado oceanfront within the district of Santurce in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Club Deportivo del Oeste is a private club in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico which has the largest marina and one of only two golf courses in the Porta del Sol region of Puerto Rico.
Higuillar is a barrio on the coast of the municipality of Dorado, Puerto Rico. Its population in 2010 was 25,785.
The Northeast Ecological Corridor Nature Reserve (NECNR) refers to an area designated as a protected Nature Reserve located on the northeast coast of Puerto Rico, between the municipalities of Luquillo and Fajardo. Specifically, the lands that comprise the NEC are located between Luquillo's town square to the west and Seven Seas Beach to the east, being delineated by PR Route # 3 to its south and the Atlantic Ocean to its north. It was decreed as a protected area by former Puerto Rico Governor Aníbal S. Acevedo-Vilá in April 2008, a decision reversed by Governor Luis G. Fortuño-Burset in October 2009, although he later passed a law in June 2012 re-designated as nature reserve two-thirds of its lands, after intense lobbying and public pressure. Later, in 2013, Governor Alejandro García-Padilla signed a law declaring all lands within the NEC a nature reserve. The area comprises 2,969.64 acres, which include such diverse habitats as forest, wetlands, beaches, coral communities, and a sporadically bioluminescent lagoon. The Corridor is also home to 866 species of flora and fauna, of which 54 are considered critical elements, meaning rare, threatened, endangered and endemic species classified by the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER), some even designated as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). These include, among others, federally endangered species such as the plain pigeon, the snowy plover, the Puerto Rican boa, the hawksbill sea turtle and the West Indian manatee. The beaches along the NEC, which are 8.74 kilometers long are important nesting grounds for the leatherback sea turtle, which starts its nesting season around April each year.
The Sea Pines Company was a real estate development group founded by General Joseph Bacon Fraser, Charles E. Fraser, and Joseph B. Fraser, Jr. In 1956. It developed Sea Pines Plantation, Amelia Island Plantation, Brandermill (Virginia), Kiawah Island, Palmas Del Mar, Hilton Head Plantation, Wintergreen Resort and more. It was successful in the 1960s but hit hard by 1972-1974 recession. It was sold in 1983.
Palmas del Mar Tropical Forest, also known as the Palmas del Mar Pterocarpus Forest, is located in and near the beach resort community of Palmas del Mar in Humacao, Puerto Rico. The 144 acres of forest tracts belonging to the Palmas del Mar Tropical Forest are protected by conservation easement laws between Palmas del Mar Properties Inc. and the Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico since 2010. It consists of secondary forests, mangroves and, most notably, a Pterocarpus forest. The Candelero River also crosses the forest area and its mouth is also located just north of the forest limits.