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Escazú · San José · Design phase · Construction phase · One advocate
One point of contact on your side, from the first sketch to the day you get the keys — in English and in Spanish.
Project management in Escazú
Escazú has the deepest luxury resale market in the country and some of its most demanding sites. Hillside lots above San Antonio and Jaboncillos routinely need a geotechnical report before the municipality will issue the permit, retaining structure can be one of the largest lines in the budget, and stormwater arriving from uphill neighbours is a real design input. Managing a project here means getting those numbers early: we commission the soil and slope work before the architect is far into design, so every builder prices the same retaining and drainage scope. With land this expensive, discipline starts before purchase too — the Escazú area guide covers the market, and design management in Escazú goes deeper on the permit track.
Building in Escazú
Escazú runs its own municipal review and is among the stricter cantones in the country on slope studies. Hillside lots above San Antonio routinely require a geotechnical report before the permiso de construcción is issued, and the municipality enforces its setback and height rules closely.
Steep volcanic terrain with variable bearing capacity. Retaining structure is a major cost line on most lots, and stormwater management matters more here than almost anywhere in the Central Valley — water arriving from uphill neighbours is a real design input.
The deepest luxury resale market in Costa Rica, with buyers who compare finish quality directly against Santa Ana. Land basis is high enough that acquisition discipline decides project viability.
Overview
Building a house in Costa Rica means hiring an architect, a builder, a topographer and an engineer, then working through a string of institutions that each run in Spanish and on their own clock. Full project management puts one bilingual advocate between you and all of them. We set the scope with you, build the budget from real Costa Rican construction costs, run competitive bids for the architect and later for the builder, carry the permit file, and then stay on the job through construction — on site every week, controlling change orders and reporting back with photos — until the warranties and the handover file are in your hands. Unlike our general contracting service, we are not the builder here: we work for you, and we hold the builder to the contract on your behalf.
Local practice
Whatever the service, the underlying method is the same. Structure is reinforced concrete block and beam or light-gauge steel, sized against the seismic zone your lot sits in. Overhangs are deep enough to keep driving rain off the walls. Foundations are raised and drained. Timber is treated or naturally resistant, and detailed to stay out of ground contact.
These are not preferences. They are what has been shown to survive here, and they are why we do not simply execute a set of plans drawn for a different climate without redesigning the parts that would fail.
See the full build standardField notes
Residency, the Caja, taxes and costs — plus the part only a builder tells you: Florida teaches you wind and humidity, and Costa Rica grades you on earthquakes first.
Read the article →Per square foot, per square metre, and everything the per-square-foot number leaves out. Written from the bid tabulations rather than from a forum thread.
Read the article →Local questions
It depends on the lot, which is exactly why we do not guess. Retaining, drainage and foundation design on a steep Escazú lot can move the budget more than the finish level does, so we get a geotechnical report and an engineer's retaining concept before builders bid. Our cost guide shows how slope and access move the numbers.
Steep volcanic terrain with variable bearing capacity. Retaining structure is a major cost line on most lots, and stormwater management matters more here than almost anywhere in the Central Valley — water arriving from uphill neighbours is a real design input.
We build throughout Escazú, with most of our work concentrated in San Rafael, Guachipelín, Jaboncillos and San Antonio hills. The deepest luxury resale market in Costa Rica, with buyers who compare finish quality directly against Santa Ana. Land basis is high enough that acquisition discipline decides project viability.
A general contractor builds the house and earns its margin on the construction contract. A project manager works for the owner: we select and supervise the architect and the builder, check their work and invoices against the contract, and have no stake in the construction price. If you would rather have one company design and build under a single contract, that is our general contracting service.
Project management elsewhere
Escazú enquiries
Send us the plano catastrado and we will come back with what the Escazú municipal rules actually allow on that lot, a realistic cost band, and a permitting timeline for this cantón specifically.
Replies within one business day. Consultations in English or Spanish.
