January and February are way low season on Egypt's North Coast, about a 110-mile-long strip between Alexandria on the east and El-Alamein on the west that is breaking out in resorts the way a kid with chicken pox develops spots. Even though people who live in snow country find days to be mild and sunny, this long resort strip is eerily empty right now. Not so, I am told, between June and August when the area's 100-degree heat and Mediterrranean breezes are a welcome relief for the truly heat-plagued citizens of Cairo (population 18+ million) and Alexandria (7 million in winter) come to cool off.
Of the dozens of resort developments, those in AMER Group's portfolio are the most impressive and aggressive. Mansour Abd El-Meguid Amer is CEO of the AMER Group, and when I look at the ambitious scale of his projects, I am persuaded that he is a direct descendant of Egypt's pyramid builders. AMER Group says that it specializes in "high-speed development." I'll say.
Golf Porto Marina
Under construction now is Golf Porto Marina (below). The first 6,000 of a projected 18,000 units are to be handed over to owners before the summer 2009 peak season kicks in. The 18-hole golf course designed by Raymond Hearn has been sodded and is a green space in the desert. Likewise, the swimming pools, Egypt's first dancing fountain and the gold course's water hazards water are wet spots in the desert. In addition to the condo units, a 300-room hotel should be open by next year, and additionally in the works are a huge aqua park, an "Olympic Sports Village" (does the IOC know about this?) and a California State University campus. What? Our Cal State?!?!?!?!
Porto MarinaIf I just read this and weren't experiencing it at Porto Marina (upper photo below), the company's North Coast flagship, I wouldn't believe it. I'm staying in one of the 380 hotel rooms set among buildings with thousands of condo units, I might think this was an impossible Brobdinagian, Las Vegas without gambling, booze or broads fantasy. But it's no fantasy at all. It's a clean-cut, family-oriented resort development where swim-up bars serve nothing stronger than fruit smoothies, and women at "mixed" (i.e., co-ed) beaches and pools must covered in burkinis. There are separate, secluded, guarded ones for women who want to wear revealing swimwear.
In addition to the hotel, the property has hundreds (maybe thousands) of apartments and villas, a bunch of swimming pools (including a kiddie pool with several levels of water slides, middle photo) a 500-slip marina, conference facilities, shopping mall with name-brand retrailers and restaurants, and spa. It also has a Venetian-inspired "Grand Canal" (bottom photo). Because hardly anyone is here right now, the gondolas are beached. I kid you not.
BTW, these are just two of many AMER Group's projects.
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