Every year, after the shareholders’ meeting, I write a letter to Porta Norte’s shareholders. This is the 2026 letter, in its public version: I took out the financial figures and the internal matters that belong only to them. Everything else is exactly as I told it to them.
Panama City, August 12, 2026
Our vision is to become the most important and successful residential and commercial real estate development in the northern area of Panama City, under the concept of New Urbanism: a place with all the comforts of the city, surrounded by nature, offering an urban experience that is enriching, sustainable and centered on community.
Macroeconomics
Now I want to set this in the context of the market. Housing is coming off several hard years: the changes to the preferential interest rate law hit developers hard, and sales in the preferential segment felt it. Today the mood is turning: at CONVIVIENDA —the developers’ guild we belong to as Grupo Colonias— there is optimism because the 2% preferential rate is being reinstated, and the banks are backing the sector again, helped by the tax incentives.
Banco General finances our infrastructure and remains our great ally.
The thesis we have held since 2014 is confirmed day after day: the capital’s urban expansion is moving north, and it places Porta Norte at the epicenter of that growth. Just look at the pace of our most active neighbors: Paseo del Norte —already developing Nodo Norte, its business district— and Green City; every delivery they make raises the value of the area.
The phases, in order
Now I want to walk you through the master plan, phase by phase and in chronological order. The map, so you can get your bearings:
Phase 1
I will start with Phase 1, the front door of the project. Its great anchor is St. Peter’s Academy: the school’s first phase opened in March 2026 and today welcomes 450 students —and their families— every morning. It keeps growing and is already planning its next phases. Few things give a new city more life and credibility than a school full of children.
The Porta Norte–Portavita Sales Center operates in this same phase, turning visitors into neighbors. We also finished a valuable piece of work: we filled the hole in the central parcel, right behind the Porta Norte sign at the entrance, creating a large street-level lot meant for commercial use, 2.5 hectares, ready to go to market.
Phase 1B and Portavita
In Phase 1B, which includes El Peñón, we finished the earthwork; what comes next are its streets. El Peñón looks completely transformed — a developable, stable place, with its terraces shaped and ready to build on.
The most important thing that can happen to a new city is happening there: houses being built to populate Porta Norte with residents. That is the mission of Portavita, our first residential project, which started building its internal infrastructure in June.
If I had to pick a single leading indicator of Porta Norte’s health, I would pick Portavita’s sales. The reason is simple: we sell land to developers, and developers only buy where houses sell. Portavita is the first live proof, on our own land, that houses sell in Porta Norte. Every house sold gives the developers coming behind us confidence in absorption.
The proof is holding: Portavita is already selling, and the infrastructure for its 79 houses has been under construction since June.
Every family that buys in Portavita does three things for us at once: 1) it creates critical mass — each new neighbor makes the next one’s lot more valuable; 2) it populates the city — the Costa del Este script is to populate first with houses and densify later with buildings; and 3) it makes us money directly, because Porta Norte is a partner in Portavita. We win as sellers of land, we win again as partners of the developer.
Phase 2: crossing the river
Phase 2 starts with the river. Last year I told you that the standing challenge to reach Phase 2 was crossing the María Prieta River, and that our goal was to start construction of Puente María during 2026.
Today I write to you with the bridge at 65% physical progress and a contractual completion date of October 19, 2026. We are building two of the four lanes first, exactly as we planned: half the bridge, expandable when traffic calls for it. I want to underline how pleased we are with this job: it has been well executed, with a contractor that has done orderly, quality work — the girders are already launched and the deck is underway.
A bridge is crossed only once. Further along there will still be a creek, but no barrier like this one: the river was the project’s biggest geographic barrier, and we are getting past it. What comes next are the phases beyond the bridge, where we have many parcels for houses, ready to be developed in stages. That is why this bridge is not just another job; it is the key to the rest of Porta Norte.
The Phase 2 that this bridge opens is no longer a plan: it is under construction. SUCASA signed the promise-to-purchase agreement for 2.4 hectares in this phase and is today both buyer and builder of its own development. Work has already started on the systems beneath the streets — the sanitary and storm networks.
Across the whole phase we are executing the rational minimum of infrastructure: what the project needs to show well commercially and to let us deliver the lots and parcels, collect their final payments and bring the debt down. That is why we are building half the boulevard first.
Phases 3 and 4
In Phases 3 and 4 this year’s work was design: we advanced the detailed master plan with the architecture firm RAWA, led by architect Ricardo Arosemena, incorporating everything we have learned in the project so far — parcels that are easier to sell and cheaper to develop, which improve the feasibility of the project.
We also decided to move up the preliminary design of Phase 3 in parallel with Phase 4. We would rather invest in design today than discover tomorrow that a permit is holding up the work.
Master plan notes
I close the tour with one general note: density. Last year I explained our price list with the logic of the cow: the shank —the house parcels— is the cheap cut, and the tenderloin —the building lots— is the expensive one. You have to eat shank to get to the tenderloin. This year I want to tell you how we are going to make the tenderloin bigger.
We continue working on the amendment to the Territorial Planning Study to raise the zoning of the later phases from RM2 to RM3 — from 1,000 to 1,500 inhabitants per hectare. The arithmetic is powerful: the land is the same, the cost of developing it barely changes, and every square meter sold at higher density sells at a higher price — approved density is a windfall that turns into price. When we can raise density, the value of the project rises with it, without buying one more hectare — more city on the same land.
It is a balance, though: the more density, the longer the land takes to be absorbed and the harder it is for the market to accept it — but once the market accepts it, the project becomes very valuable. Just look at Santa María: today the buildings are going up left and right — they are getting to the dessert that was planted several decades ago.
But density is not decreed: it is earned. To raise density we have to build a place people love. That is where our wheel turns: the school brings students and families every morning, the Sales Center turns visitors into neighbors, Portavita sets the standard and brings the pioneers, the sign gives the place a name, the plaza gives it a heart, the trees bring freshness and life, and the bridge opens the door to the next decade.
None of those pieces moves the needle on its own; together they turn the wheel harder every year, and the effect multiplies — each new piece is worth more because the earlier ones are already in place.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the company is doing exactly what we said it would do, in the order we said we would do it: populate El Peñón, cross the river, open Phase 2 and prepare the density that will multiply the value of the phases that follow. We keep a conservative stance on debt and a healthy balance sheet, investing in infrastructure rationally —deliberately and with our eyes open— to recover the investment and leave the next phases ready to open.
If we go back to 2014, there was virgin land here, full of hills and with hardly any access. Today there are streets, public spaces, a sign you can see from the highway, a school with children, houses under construction, a bridge that already touches the other bank and the next phase being built at full speed — more fronts open and more machines working than at any other moment in our history.
I always say Porta Norte is like an iceberg: it moves slowly, but on a colossal scale. Once we cross the river, the best is ahead: more phases open, more families moving into a brand-new city and more value compounding year after year.
Thank you for the trust and the patience with which you have stood by this project. I invite you to visit Porta Norte whenever you like: walking the project and seeing it with your own eyes is better than any report.
Sincerely,
Henry James Faarup Humbert
CEO, Grupo Colonias
CEO & Co-founder, Porta Norte
