Playacar's History

It was developed in 1979 by Mr. Fernando Barbachano´s company: “Compañía Impulsora Turística de Playa del Carmen, S.A., Afterwards he sold the development Playacar to Aircoa, an American Corporation, who sold the development to SIDEK of the Martínez Huitron Family and more recently sold to Mr. Ernesto Echeverria.

Playacar was one of the impellers of Playa del Carmen´s development. In the beginning there were more private security guards than police officers in Playa del Carmen. Mr. Barbachano often organized barbeques on the beach with his workers, Mr George Bush, before he became President of the United States attended one of these beach parties when Mr. Barbachano invited him to invest here.

Next to the wood pier where Ferries departed to Cozumel there was a hotel with a wooden terrace where Playacar´s first owners got together to have dinner.

In the early years it was a very small community of some Mexican owners and just a few American owners who used to come to avoid the long and raw winter in their country and to enjoy the warm weather of the Caribbean. They usually arrived every year to the development in November and left in April.

At that time, Playa del Carmen was not a city and you had to travel to Cancun for all the shopping.

The pioneers established a Home Owners Association and signed a contract with Impulsora Playacar, the developing company, which stated that the corporation was going to finish the urbanization. They also agreed to join an Administration Trust that Impulsora established in 1991, taking the administration of the development. Impulsora Playacar could not accomplish the contract because of the1995 devaluation.

The first president of the Trust was Mr. Richard Kelso, who invited the home owners to be part of the association. Mr. Richard Swanson was the second president of this Trust. Now, Mr. Frank Walton is the president of the Trust, who with the help of the administrator Mr. José Luis Gascón accomplished the finishing of the sewer system, the sidewalks, the paving of the main street, the installation of underground phone lines and the acquiring of the office and now they are working with the Vigilance Committee to accomplish the underground electric installation and the paving of the whole development.