In a week in which large numbers of the property industry are sunning themselves on the beach, Adrian Morrison talks to the man who has developed one of the industry’s favourite resorts.
If experience shapes the man, then few developers have been more keenly taught the lesson of perseverance than André Jordan.
in 1939, the Nazis drove Jordan, then six, and his family from their native Poland. He subsequently lived through half a dozen revolutions, coups and putsches in Brazil, Argantina, Venezuela and Portugal. In 1974, the April revolution in Portugal divested Jordan of his Algarve resort, Quinta Do lago.
However, in his sumputous Eaton Square falt, the 67-year-oldbetrays none of the travails he has endured. Portugal’s premier resort developer is a warm and avuncular figure, dipping frequently into a large crystal bowl of sweets.
Today, Jordan is back at Quinta Do Lago, developing the last chunk of the 809ha (2,000 acres) resort. His company, Lusotor, is also extending one of Europe’s largest private resorts at nearby Vilamoura, creating a “leisure city” on 1,600ha (3,954 acres).
Jordan took a controlling stake in Lusotor four years ago, when it was making a loss. With the came control of Vilamoura, Portugal’s oldest tourist resort, some 20km outside Faro. Ambitious plans here will see the creation of shemes totalling 900,000m2 (9.7m sq ft).
” We have commissioned SOM Architectural Practice to design a complex of hotels, apratments and family homes” he explaines.
But times have changed since Jordan first started developing resorts, and the Portuguese autthorities-especially in the Algarve- are more resistant to the tide of concrete sweeping the Nediterranean.
So Lusotur is promoting Vilamoura as an upscale “green” destination, stressing its cycle routes, environmental park, wildlife, and beach cleaning.
“If you want to give quality to clients you have to give them something that works together with nature, which today is called eco-tourism.
“In this type of resort you can’t produce eco-tourism, but you can have an environmental policy and respect that,” says Jordan’s son Constantino, managing director of Vilamoura Marina.
Propects at Villamoura
It will eventually have a fifth course-designed by golfing legent Arnold Palmer. There will also be an academy run by Tiger Woods’s coach, Butch Harman.
Jordan is clearly excited by the prospects.
“We have entered a new phase for Vilamoura with the opening of the fourth course. Around this we have developed the residential scheme Pinhal Velho, which means Old Pinewood. We have asked the famous Spanish architect Javier Barba to design the chalets,” Jordab Says.
Vilamoura is oart of the vision Jordab had for the Algarve 30 years ago when, on a trip to Portugal, he saw the potential for US-style country clubs there. He took the risk and raised $3m to start Quinta Do Lago, onlu to lose it in the political and economic upheaval after the 1974 revolution.
But in 1982, Jordan got it back from the Portuguese governement-along with $30m of debt that the business has run in the meantime. He repositioned the estate, disigning new villages and selling the projects to other companies: Shell, Bovis, P&O. He held Golf tournements and built the stuctures to support them, and such efforts rekindled the foreign interest for which the Algarve is now famous.
In 1987, Jordan sold the Quinta Do Lago development for $30m to two British businessmen, David Thompson and Roger Abrahams. He spent the nest seven years as managing director of Bovis abroad in london, among other ventures. In 1994 he bought back a parcel of land at Quinta, where he is now developing the Monte Da Quinta club. Here, four-bedroom villas sell for £500,000 and upwards.
Other projects include the 480ha (1,186 acres) Belas Country Club outside Lisbon, which has restaurants, hotels and holiday apartments alongside a championship golf course. “We are looking at two other projects outside the Algarve and Lisbon, “says Jordan. “Our business gas evolved naturally in appoaches we have had from partners and investors. We feel the best way is to work with people who have local expertise ans investments, and to act as advisers in planning, operational, financial and investment aspects.
“We have been appoached by so many different people that we are creating AJ Consultants, a property development fund and venture capital fund, where institutions will be able to invest in projects in which we are involved: in Eastern Europe, South America, Africa, Poland, Costa Rica and Mozambique.
“The one investment that provides both great enjoyment and profit is property”, says Jordan.
A pitch to potential customers, perhaps, but also a suitable motto for a man who has spent over 30 years enjoying it himself.
