President Laura Fernández signed a law on Thursday that clears the path for a marina and dedicated cruise terminal in Puerto Limón, a long-delayed project that officials hope will reshape tourism on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. Fernández signed the measure at the Hernán Garrón Salazar terminal in the central area of Limón, the same waterfront site where the future complex would be built, alongside Minister of the Presidency and former president Rodrigo Chaves, Limón Mayor Ana Matarrita McCalla, and lawmakers who backed the initiative.
The law reforms the organic statute of the Junta de Administración Portuaria y de Desarrollo Económico de la Vertiente Atlántica (Japdeva), the state port authority for the Atlantic coast. It gives the agency legal footing to form strategic alliances with public or private partners, including foreign firms, for projects tied to infrastructure, tourism, commerce, research, technology and services.
According to the legislative text, those alliances may run for terms of up to 50 years. The bill (file 24.259) passed the Legislative Assembly in second and final debate with unanimous support from 50 lawmakers and the backing of all five political factions.
Lawmakers who negotiated the final version said it was rewritten to add oversight that earlier drafts lacked. Frente Amplio deputy José María Villalta described the compromise as an attempt to balance the need to attract investment through Japdeva against concerns that previous versions were too loosely drafted.
The approved text sets a canon of 1.5 percent of gross revenue from any strategic alliance to fund supervision and monitoring, and it keeps the projects under the fiscal review of the Comptroller General of the Republic. Strategic alliances are exempted from ordinary public-contracting procedures but, per the law, must still respect the principles of transparency, equality, publicity, free competition and accountability.
For Limón, the most visible payoff would be the marina and cruise terminal itself. According to project information released by Japdeva, the complex would occupy roughly 27 hectares (about 67 acres) within the Hernán Garrón Salazar terminal, next to the existing cargo port, at an estimated cost of $854 million — a figure cited by the previous Chaves administration.
Japdeva has said the marina would offer up to 120 berths with services such as fuel and food, and that the cruise terminal could handle as many as 10,000 passengers on a peak day. Plans described by the port authority include a building to receive cruise passengers, local shops, restaurants, an artisan market, hotels, parking and urban-integration areas, along with what would be the first tourist marina on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast.
Supporters frame the project as an economic lifeline for a province where tourism has historically trailed the Pacific coast despite the Caribbean’s strong Afro-Caribbean culture, national parks and beaches. Reporting on the signing noted an official estimate that Costa Rica forgoes around $300,000 in potential spending for every ship that cannot properly dock in Limón.
Puerto Limón already serves as a gateway for cruise passengers heading to Tortuguero’s canals, Cahuita National Park and the beach towns of the southern Caribbean, and the province was recently highlighted as an emerging global destination in travel-trend rankings. Local leaders, including Mayor Matarrita, have long argued that the jobs generated by such a project are essential to give the region an economic alternative.
Even with the signature in hand, the complex remains years from reality. In earlier reporting, Japdeva did not provide construction timelines, projected job numbers or estimated annual revenues, and it has acknowledged that building could take considerable time. The next steps include publication of the law, the drafting of Japdeva regulations, formal structuring of the project and any eventual contracts with strategic partners.
For now, the signing gives Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast one of its clearest legal paths yet toward a major tourism-infrastructure project that has been discussed, in various forms, since a 2008 port master plan.
