Builders Jamaica December - March 2022

COVER STORY
Sunset Cove by Walker Sharpe Ltd
XKR Design Consultants, the designers behind
the much-talked-about Echelon Residences on
Upper Waterloo Road, are also excited about the
prospects for not only Constant Spring Gardens but
the whole Kingston 10 area. This particular region
has traditionally been seen as commercial, but the
face of the area is rapidly changing to a mixed zone
now that the government has given the go-ahead for
the construction of high-rise and mid-rise residential
developments in various belts throughout. They
believe that the persistent demand for housing in the
city means areas like Constant Spring Gardens will
become more sought after. Elevating the design of
its home offerings brings value to the community and
provides attractive prospects for many middle-income
earners who wouldn’t be able to buy in the more
traditional areas, but still want somewhere nice to live.
XLR’s first project in Constant Spring Gardens,
currently under construction on Sunset Drive,
is Helios, a three-storey, nine-unit apartment
complex. Another complex in the vicinity of
Lindsay Crescent will begin construction soon,
with a third planned for an area off Red Hills Road.
“For areas like this, development is a good thing.
A lot of these properties have been derelict for
the last 20 years, so the land value wasn’t great
and people generally didn’t want to live there,”
said XLR’s director. “When a developer comes in
and buys one house and creates a small apartment
complex or a set of townhouses, people look at the
area differently. If you go on Sunset Drive right now,
it feels like opportunity, a breath of fresh air, new
energy. You can tell that a lot of young people are
going to move into the area now. We’ve created a
lot of new opportunities for living and working and
that's a window into what Kingston is going to look
like when this wave of new development has passed.”
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