The latest high-end resort by the Cisneros Group aims to preserve and protect where it profits
By Doreen Hemlock
The Cisneros Group, the Miami-based conglomerate that owns media, consumer products, and diverse businesses worldwide, has started construction on its largest real estate venture yet: a Four Seasons luxury resort and residences in the northeast Dominican Republic, estimated to cost more than $200 million.
The project is slated to open in 2026 on a 60-acre site on Esmeralda Beach on the southern shores of Samana Bay, with a focus on sustainability in design, materials, food, and community links. It will offer 95 deluxe hotel units, 25 private homes, plus a spa, fitness center, restaurants, and other amenities. Samana Bay is known for humpback whales and leatherback turtles that return to birth new generations.
The development comes as the Dominican Republic consolidates its lead as the top travel destination in the Caribbean. The tropical nation – some three hours by air from Miami – last year hosted more than eight million visitors and expects to top 10 million this year, partly because of a jump in cruise arrivals, says Tourism Minister David Collado. The bulk of air arrivals use privately owned Punta Cana International Airport in the country’s east, one of the likely gateways for visitors to the Four Seasons venture.
“This project shows how tourism in the Dominican Republic is evolving and moving up in quality,” says Andres Marrazini, executive vice president of the Dominican Hotel and Tourism Association, known by its Spanish initials Asonahores. “We now have resort ventures from such top North American brands such as Four Seasons, St. Regis, Hyatt, and Marriott, with some even offering luxury all-inclusive resorts.”
A family-led enterprise, the Cisneros Group started up in Venezuela nearly a century ago under Diego Cisneros and is now run from Miami by his granddaughter Adriana, who holds degrees from top U.S. universities. The group is perhaps best known for Spanish-language programming for TV, internet, and other media, distributed not only across Latin America but also to the U.S. Hispanic market.
The Cisneros family has long spent time in the Dominican Republic, and decades back, bought some 12 miles of undeveloped land near Samana that they dubbed “Tropicalia.” For the last 12 years, its nonprofit Fundacion Tropicalia has been working with the nearby community on social programs, conservation, entrepreneurship, and more to nurture sustainability before kicking off its real estate development. One summer camp program, for example, helps girls avert pregnancy and finish high school, so they can hopefully find work with new resorts and businesses springing up in the Miches area.
“Most developers build a hotel and afterwards, they try to figure out how to be nice to the community. We did it in reverse,” Adriana Cisneros told Forbes recently. “We wanted to pay attention to education because it’s Latin America, and the more rural the area, the more difficult.”
South Florida companies play a key role in the Cisneros-Four Seasons project. IMI Worldwide Properties, based in West Palm Beach, is handling sales of the 25 residences. Prices start at $4 million for a three-bedroom home and at $9 million for a beachfront villa, says sales executive Marika Kalogerakis.
Fort Lauderdale-based EDSA, a veteran in Caribbean resorts, serves as master planner and landscape architect. The project aims for certification under the Leadership in Environmental Energy and Design (LEED) program, a standard for “green” buildings that would be new in the Dominican Republic.
International firms are also involved. Besides Toronto-based luxury resort specialist Four Seasons, Brazilian architect Isay Weinfield developed the design, drawing inspiration from the Dominican Republic’s native materials and its colonial-era towns. France’s Bouygues Construction serves as general contractor.
The Cisneros family has a 30-year plan to develop Tropicalia sustainably. The land already hosts a farm that supplies fruits and vegetables to local markets and grows certified-organic cacao used to make chocolate.
