Three New Hotels for Albrook

The Ramada Plaza & Casino, Days Inn and Gran Terminal will join the Panama hotel scene in 2012.

The three new hotels with a total of 650 guest rooms along with a fifth stage in Albrook mall development will cost an estimated $66.8 million and generate an anticipated 1,000 jobs, according to the project’s developers.

“We are proud of this new hotel venture, primarily directed to shopping tourism in Albrook Mall, as well as business travelers tied to companies in the Canal and for tourism in general,” said Mayor Alfredo Aleman, board member of Grupo Los Pueblos which owns the Albrook Mall and Terminal, and President of Inmobiliaria Albrook, the company developing the hotels.

In somewhat related news, a Mayor Alfredo Aleman, once Vice President of the now defunct Banaico Bank and chief campaign fundraiser for former president Ernesto Perez Balladeres, was one of the owners of Trans Latin Air, an air cargo company indicted in the United States in a 1994 drug trafficking case.  Aleman denied involvement in any wrongdoing at the time.

Under the Balladeres administration, Aleman also reportedly received a sweetheart deal on 113 acres in the Albrook area back in 1999 for the development of the Albrook Mall and Terminal.

Aerial View of Albrook Mall and Terminal (Google Earth)