Casco Viejo - San Felipe - Casco Antiguo
September 2007
Ten years ago this month Panama City's
three hundred year old historic
district, Casco Antiguo, was named a
World Heritage Site by the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO). At the
time, few imagined the impending boom
that would so radically change the
surrounding city skyline.
Today, with tower cranes crowding the
nearby shores, residents of the historic
district shudder to think what might
have happened had their beloved 100 acre
peninsula not been protected. "In 1994 a
developer tried to build a high rise on
the best site in the neighborhood," says
long time resident and architect,
Sebastian Paniza. "Imagine what would
have happened by now."
The World Heritage Site designation and
the accompanying Panamanian legislation
was actually the culmination of many
years of effort by a small but dedicated
group of Panamanians who treasured the
district's cultural significance and
understood the consequences of leaving
its fate to the markets. Many of those
who took up the original fight,
including Mr. Paniza, still live in the
neighborhood, running businesses that
have demonstrated the compatibility of
progress and historic preservation.
But from the point of view of the
residents, the protections are not just
about saving pretty buildings, they also
maintain the neighborhood's essential
character as a pedestrian-oriented old
quarter. "There is something special
about the human scale of a historic
district," maintains Alan Winters, a
4-year Casco resident. "It's not so
dense that you're anonymous, but not so
spread out that you are isolated." This
"human scale" is a function of the
protection scheme, which dictates that
volumes must stay as they were designed
before the automobile age--principally
two and three story buildings separated
by relatively narrow streets.
This old world charm can be seen on
every corner, where contrasts seem to
curiously coexist. Residents in Casco
Antiguo appear to have a unique vision
for the eclectic: an international
community that balances the demand for
high-end restoration with the needs of
the existing population. Both by
attitude and by law, the district is
trying to establish itself on a national
level, as a model sustainable
development and social responsibility.
Many hope that this model demonstrated
in Casco Antiguo will help set the
standard for elsewhere in Panama, where
tourism niches are just beginning to
develop. "It would be dangerous for
Panama tourism to go mainstream,"
believes Matt Landau, owner of Los
Cuatro Tulipanes , a boutique hotel
situated in the heart of the old
quarter. "Cookie-cutter resorts and
amusement park-type attractions are fine
for a while, but in the end they're all
humdrum. We believe true travelers want
to experience new and interesting things
on every visit, and in the Casco, our
guests are really intrigued by that
sense the unexpected. That sense of the
authentic."
Another side effect of the protections
has been to ensure authenticity and
limit oversupply, something that Casco
Antiguo owners have come to appreciate
in an age when name brand high-rise
towers have begun to seem like fungible
commodities. Local businesspeople such
as Patrizia Pinzon of Arco Properties
echo that notion. "The Casco is a very
niche market. Our clients tend to be
people who understand the essence of
long term value and developers know that
they are creating truly unique
properties. Thankfully, most of the
projects are quite small and the
developers we work with are willing to
say no to speculators because they know
that good buyers create value for the
entire neighborhood."
Development in Casco Antiguo is an
ongoing, almost-evolutionary process and
when presented with the question of just
when the neighborhood will be finished,
Ms. Pinzon takes a kind of optimistic
offense. "I don't think we should speak
in terms of "finishing". It's a city,
not a museum. And great cities live
forever. Great cities are always
changing."
Luckily for the residents of Casco
Antiguo, those changes will only go so
far.
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