The dramatic transformation under way in Panama, with the turnover of the Canal Zone from U.S. to local control, has created big opportunities for a south Florida land planning company and a law firm.

The government agency created to administer and oversee development of 365,000 acres in the Canal Zone, the Autoridad de la Region Interoceanica (ARI), has retained Edward D. Stone Jr. and Associates (EDSA) of Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach based Gunster, Yoakley, Valdes-Fauli & Stewart.

EDSA is to create a master plan for development of Fort Amador, a 397-acre tract at the Pacific entrance to the canal that is being transformed to include residential areas, hotels, a marina, shopping center and recreational facilities.

Gunster Yoakley is creating the legal framework for the development. Partners Andrew S. Robins and Maria Elena Prio are leading a team of eight lawyers to create land use controls for development, prepare long-term leases for privatized lands and prepare concession agreements for companies providing services.

The legal team, which has experience in privatization, land use, resort development and financing, started the work in 1996, and expects to complete the job by the end of this year.

EDSA partner Bill Renner says competition for the $1 million Fort Amador planning project was strong; His company was selected from about four that went after the work.

Robins won't say how much Gunster Yoakley is earning from the legal work it is doing  now; but the real value, he says, is the potential for huge amounts of additional work from the firm as the rest of Canal Zone lands are developed.  The entire zone land will revert to Panamanian control by Dec. 31, 1999.

"It is a significant contract, but is really just a first step in what we believe can be a very long-term project for the firm and a very prominent project for us to be working on," says Robins.

The Fort Amador effort positions the firm to be retained by the authority to do similar work in other parts of the Canal Zone and assist in negotiations with hotels, resort development firms and other companies.

There are many other possibilities as well. For example, the master plan for Fort Amador call for time-share developments, but Panama has no time-share law. Gunster Yoakley has lawyers well versed in that subject who would be happy to draft the law.

"An area of enormous opportunity is possibly to help them plan privatization of other portions of the Canal Zone," Robins says. "The fact we have done these land-use controls would make us the likely candidate to work on those phases of the development.

Renner agrees that the Fort Amador work was an initial opportunity for his 37 year-old company, which has handled other development projects outside the U.S. and

counts Walt Disney Co. among its clients.  EDSA, which completed master plan last year, now is working on a master plan for Punta Pacifica, which also will be a mixed use development.

Renner says he knows Gunster Yoakley lawyers well because they and those in his company have worked on other projects together.

"They are very competent in legal issues that affect tourism and resort development," Renner says. "Over the years it has become one of their specialties. They have a range of knowledge from vacation ownership to golf operations to hotel legal affairs and we have a good relationship with them."

Gunster Yoakley was positioned to be selected for the Fort Amador work because its leisure and resorts practice group has long represented government bodies in matters such as tourism development, land planning, privatization of government-owned facilities and structuring financing.

This expertise got a boost from Gunster's 1994 merger with Valdes-Fauli, Bischoff, Kriss & Mandler, a Miami firm with well-established international law experience and connections throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean.; Maria Elena Prio was part of the Valdes-Fauli firm. Add another Valdes-Fauli partner, Guillermo Fernandez-Quincoces, had Panamanian clients and suggested that Robins attend a conference where he learned more about redevelopment plans.

"I don't know if we would have really been able to get the Panama work without the fact we merged with the Valdes-Fauli firm, which truly made us a multicultural firm and allowed us to put lawyers on this that have done a tremendous amount of work in most of the Latin American jurisdictions," Robins says.

"I think it was critical," Robins says."Working together, we were able to get that.[Prio] couldn't have gotten that work without me because [the Valdes-Fauli firm] didn't have the tourism base, and we couldn't have gotten it without them."

Beyond that, the firm's previous legal work abroad gave its lawyers the expertise to handle the Panama project.

The firm, for example, recommended changes to Haitian law to encourage foreign investment.  Then, the lawyers moved on to Puerto Rico, representing the government in the privatization of hotels and developing financing mechanisms for new resorts. The firm also provided advice on changing gaming and labor laws to create a more competitive tourism industry, and drafted a timeshare law.

"Puerto Rico gave us the credibility we needed," Robins says. "What is evolving is, we've taken a tourism and leisure industry expertise and coupled that with experience working for governments and found a niche in the market."

This article, written by Mary Hladky, an associate editor with the Daily Business Review, is reprinted with permission from the Oct. 24, 1997 Daily Business Review.
For more information please contact:
Andrew S. Robins, Esquire