COSTA RICA Rancho Manzanillo, Liberia

A U.S. firm is trying to secure permits for a resort community in northwestern Costa Rica that it hopes will become “the premier leisure destination in Latin America.”

KC Venture Group (Paul Fingersh, managing member) is leading a group that plans to build Rancho Manzanillo on a 670-acre waterfront parcel outside Liberia, the capital of Guanacaste Province. The community will feature 369 beach and golf villas, a 130-room hotel with a spa and meeting space, a beach club, some fractional housing, and a Fred Couples “signature” golf course.

The hotel and some of Rancho Manzanillo’s houses will be “branded” by Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, which operates more than 10,000 hotel rooms in 23 countries. The golf course will be co-designed by Lee Singletary, a Plano, Texas-based architect.

Rancho Manzanillo has been in the works for several years. It was begun by Dallas, Texas-based T. F. Stone Companies and a pair of Costa Rican development firms, with KC Venture as a minority partner. KC Venture, which owns and manages more than 9,500 apartments in Midwestern and southwestern states, recently assumed the lead development role.

The partnership hopes to break ground on the community in the fall of 2010.