The five foreign companies behind the Esencia megaproject in Cabo Rojo, on Puerto Rico’s southwest coast, have left a trail of environmental destruction and community disputes in the ecologically sensitive areas where they’ve developed previous ventures.

Esencia’s developers are Reuben Brothers and Three Rules Capital. Once built, the project’s operations will be shared by three luxury hospitality giants: Rosewood Hotel Group, Mandarin Oriental, and Aman Group.

To understand how these companies have impacted communities worldwide, the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI) interviewed local organizations and reviewed environmental studies, lawsuits, and media reports. The development firms — including Irongate, Mandarin Oriental, Aman Resorts, and Rosewood Hotel Group — have been linked to controversies in places such as Baja California Sur and Puebla (Mexico), Hawaii (USA), Sazan (Albania), Canouan (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines), and Sveti Stefan (Montenegro).

The findings include reports of environmental degradation, appropriation of archaeological sites, and the obstruction of public beach access. In several of these communities, residents confirmed that developers showed little willingness to address concerns or implement mitigation measures.

For example, in 2021, the government of Montenegro got in a dispute with Aman Resorts over mutual accusations of breach of contract regarding the management of a hotel in Sveti Stefan, an island of high cultural value in the southeastern European country. The legal dispute came after residents protested and tore down a fence that blocked access to the beach.

In Montenegro, for example, Aman Resorts was embroiled in a 2021 legal dispute with the government after residents protested and dismantled a fence blocking access to the culturally significant island of Sveti Stefan.

In Mexico, the state of Puebla reclaimed control of historic structures in 2022 from Rosewood Hotel Group, accusing it of unauthorized expansions and restricting access to locals. Then-governor Miguel Barbosa Huerta called the actions “excessive abuse.”

Esencia is a tourism and residential project overlooking the Caribbean Sea, proposed by Cabo Rojo Land Acquisition LLC in the Boquerón neighborhood. The firm was incorporated in Puerto Rico as a domestic limited liability company (LLC) on March 25, 2019, for real estate development.

According to architectural plans by Álvarez-Díaz & Villalón, the development will include 530 hotel units, a private school with 500 dorm rooms, golf courses, and areas for recreation, healthcare, agriculture, commerce, and entertainment. The project will also feature 1,132 luxury residences priced between $2 million and $20 million, per its website.

The company intends to build on 1,549 cuerdas (approximately 1,504 acres) — a land area larger than Old San Juan, which spans 242 cuerdas, according to the U.S. National Park Service. This data comes from the Environmental Impact Statement submitted to the Puerto Rico Permit Management Office (OGPe, in Spanish).

Environmental groups, including Comité Caborrojeño Pro Salud y Ambiente, the Comité por la Verdadera Esencia del Suroeste, Amigxs del Mar, and Para La Naturaleza, have warned that the project poses serious ecological risks. The proposed site includes land of high environmental value near reserves with dunes, mangroves, wetlands, and coral reefs, which serve as natural defenses against storm surges, flooding, and erosion.

Despite the public opposition expressed during hearings, the Puerto Rican government has supported the project by granting nearly $498 million in tax credits through the Puerto Rico Tourism Company. These credits were approved under former Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced and later amended under Governor Pedro Pierluisi. The credits cover construction, development, and operations.

Cabo Rojo Mayor Jorge A. Morales Wiscovitch, San Germán Mayor Virgilio Olivera, and members of Puerto Rico’s business community have touted the project’s potential economic benefits for the region. As of April 2025, unemployment in the area ranged from 25% in Maricao to 6% in Hormigueros. In Cabo Rojo, the rate stood at 6.2%.

The CPI requested comment from Reuben Brothers, Rosewood Hotel Group, Mandarin Oriental, and Aman Group, but none responded. In a written statement, Roberto Ruiz Vargas, an Esencia investor and co-founder of Three Rules Capital, said: “From the beginning, we have maintained open and available communication with interested parties. Regarding information related to the project, we reiterate that it is available through the pertinent agencies, following the process established by law and current regulations. On any other matters, no further comments will be issued.”

Three Rules Capital: Following a Familiar Playbook

Before co-founding Three Rules Capital, William Bennett and Ruiz Vargas were involved in developing the Four Seasons Resort and Residences Los Cabos at Costa Palmas in Baja California Sur, México. Located in La Ribera, near Cabo Pulmo National Park, the project was developed by Desarrolladora La Ribera, S. de R.L. de C.V. in affiliation with U.S.-based Martell Capital Group LLC, also known as Irongate. It opened in 2019.

To this day, local residents continue to raise concerns about coastal degradation, damage to coral reefs, and altered beach conditions caused by the construction of the resort. In recent years, the region has seen a surge in luxury projects aimed primarily at foreign buyers.

Sociologist and teacher Irene Talavera, a native of Baja California Sur, told CPI that the community became alarmed as soon as the project was announced in 2016. The Costa Palmas complex spans 6 square kilometers — more than double the size of the fishing town of La Ribera, which covers just 2.5 square kilometers.

La Ribera is primarily a fishing community, the sociologist noted, adding that tourism developments like the Four Seasons Resort and Residences Los Cabos at Costa Palmas disrupt the local fishing industry and block access to the coast.

“Social dynamics tend to be disrupted by such massive projects,” she warned.

A Google Earth review of the area shows that construction significantly altered the coastline and nearby water bodies. Talavera said the Four Seasons resort was built over a stream and destroyed critical mangroves and dunes.

The erosion of the beach at Costa Palmas prompted hotel operators to invest in coastal remediation efforts. The Esencia development appears to follow a similar pattern to the one Bennett oversaw at Costa Palmas and which now threatens the Cabo Pulmo reef: a gated community of luxury hotels and homes in a region with significant ecological value but high poverty levels.

Environmentalists and La Ribera residents claim that a concrete wall was recently constructed to redirect floodwaters away from the resort’s golf course and buildings, cutting off natural water flow to wetlands, mangroves, and aquifers.

Water scarcity is another chronic problem in Los Cabos, except for those living in luxury developments. The region, already arid, has faced worsening shortages due to the construction of golf courses. Local media reported that residents may wait seven to 22 days between water deliveries, while hotels and luxury homes enjoy a steady supply from desalination plants and private wells.

In Cabo Rojo, residents worry that Esencia could strain the already fragile water supply, especially during peak tourism seasons. According to the Environmental Impact Statement, the development would require 1.25 million gallons of potable water daily. Cabo Rojo — with a population of around 49,000 — currently uses 4.45 million gallons per day, according to estimates by the Puerto Rico Aqueducts and Sewer Authority (AAA, in Spanish).

The AAA told developers that meeting the project’s water needs would require “significant improvements” to infrastructure. Although developers say Esencia will have its own utility systems, they also acknowledge that when those fall short, they’ll rely on the public grid.

Necessary upgrades the AAA would have to make include increased water extraction from the Lajas Valley irrigation canal and expanding the Betances filtration plant, which serves Cabo Rojo.

Mayor Morales Wiscovitch claimed in a radio interview that water service improved after the Betances plant was built. But numerous residents countered that claim online, sharing accounts of ongoing shortages.

Ana M. Hernández Alvelo, a 76-year-old resident of the Combate neighborhood, said water outages happen two to three times a week, and worsen on long weekends when tourism surges.

“I can’t go all day without water,” she said. “I have to cook, I have to bathe. This is abuse.”

Hernández Alvelo said she has been active in meetings opposing the Esencia project due to fears that it will worsen the potable water shortage and promote displacement.

Her daughter, Marisol Hernández Alvelo, said interruptions often last hours, and when service returns, there’s barely enough pressure to do laundry.

“Every day, there are more and more trailers (establishing in the area) without any planning, also golf carts,” she added, referring to traffic congestion from unchecked tourism growth.

What Happened to Hawaii

While overseeing Costa Palmas in Mexico, developer Will Bennett was also leading construction of the Ritz-Carlton Residences in Waikiki, Hawaii, as managing director of Irongate.

That $275 million project, completed in 2018, sparked opposition from residents of Waikiki, a neighborhood in the capital city of Honolulu, similar to what Esencia now faces. The condo-hotel, branded under Ritz-Carlton, was developed by PACREP LLC, a corporation affiliated with Irongate.

The Waikiki Community Board objected to the building’s height, which exceeded zoning limits by 50 feet, obstructing views of the Pacific Ocean from public and historic spaces. Nevertheless, the City Council and the Department of Planning and Permitting granted an exemption to the 300-foot maximum height restriction.

A local newspaper later revealed that developer Jason Grosfeld and his associates donated over $100,000 to the political campaigns of Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell and City Council members between 2011 and 2014.

Jeff Merz, a member of the Waikiki Community Board, told CPI that Irongate showed a lack of interest in listening to residents’ concerns during the project’s development. He explained that the Board recommended several changes to the developer, such as rotating the building to preserve public views of the mountains and the sea, to maintain a sense of Hawaiian identity in the community. However, Irongate flatly refused to amend the design, he recalled.

“Aside from providing a public park in the back of the property, the architects made no alterations to the original design based on public input. The design board and City Council approved the project with no changes to the design, as well,” he wrote. “This lack of ‘back and forth’ with the community to design a building more in keeping with design policies, is somewhat unusual in Waikiki. Most developers are more communicative and collaborative.”

In 2019, Waikiki residents also filed complaints about excessive light pollution, despite PACREP LLC’s previous environmental assessment promising to minimize lighting impacts. The Waikiki Zoning Advisory Committee also expressed concerns about the lighting fixtures proposed for the project.

According to the Three Rules Capital website, Bennett served not only as managing director of the Ritz-Carlton project but also as partner and head of development at Irongate. The Reuben Brothers site states that Bennett has lived in Puerto Rico since 2022.

In 2024, Bennett contributed $3,100 (the maximum permitted by law) to both Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz and New Progressive Party (PNP, in Spanish) representative Tatiana Pérez Ramírez. He also donated another $3,100 to the PNP’s municipal committee in San Juan. The developer also contributed $3,100 to former representative Ángel Matos, who chaired the House Committee on Tourism Industry Development in the previous four-year term, and to former gubernatorial candidate Jesús Manuel Ortiz, both of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD, in Spanish).

Meanwhile, Ruiz Vargas worked on the Amanvari Resort in Mexico, the Amanera Resort and Playa Grande Beach Club in the Dominican Republic, and Costa Terra in Portugal, under the construction firms Hermes Group, Caribbean Coast General Contractors, and Vanderhorst & Ruiz. The developer, whose father is Dominican and mother is Puerto Rican, donated $3,100 during the last election cycle to Rivera Schatz, the same amount to San Juan Mayor Miguel Romero Lugo, and to at-large representative Pérez Ramírez, all from the PNP, for a total of $9,300. He also gave $3,100 to the PPD gubernatorial candidate, former representative Matos, and made the same contribution to former Cabo Rojo mayor Roberto Ramírez Kurtz, also of the PPD.

Reuben Brothers: Buying Land at Scale

Alongside Three Rules Capital, the Esencia project is backed financially by Reuben Brothers, an investment firm founded by David and Simon Reuben. The firm has drawn criticism in Spain for aggressively purchasing ecologically sensitive land in Mallorca, Ibiza, and Madrid.

In Ibiza alone, the brothers own 1.8 square kilometers of land, including 7.3 kilometers of coastline near the popular beaches of Cala Bassa, Cala Conta, and Es Penyal. Nearly 5,000 people signed an online petition opposing development in the area. A similar petition in Puerto Rico, opposing Esencia, had gathered over 35,700 signatures by early June.

Environmental group Amics de la Terra Eivissa told CPI that, as of now, the firm’s land purchases in Ibiza haven’t resulted in visible environmental damage.

On Mallorca, the firm has acquired nearly 20 kilometers of coastline. Local mayors and Spanish media have reported that some of this land is undevelopable due to its ecological and scenic value.

The British investment firm also purchased nearly 20 kilometers of coastline on the island of Mallorca, according to its website. Some of the land they have acquired is not suitable for development due to its high ecological and scenic value, as noted in media reports by the mayors of the towns where the transactions took place.

Five years ago, Reuben Brothers also purchased 2.5 square kilometers of land near the San Juan Reservoir in Madrid for the construction of some 650 homes and a 7,350-square-meter hotel. The Community of Madrid expressed concerns about the urban development plan submitted as part of the project. The City Council required the company to submit a new environmental statement, complete a socioeconomic study, and include additional economic analyses. Reuben Brothers has not announced any development on the land through its construction portfolio.

David and Simon Reuben are also co-owners of the Newcastle United Football Club. They formerly owned Trans-World Group, a multinational aluminum and metals trading company that operated across England, Switzerland, and the former Soviet Union during the 1970s–1990s. They launched Reuben Brothers in 2002.

Questionable Records in Protected Areas

Rosewood Hotel Group — one of Esencia’s prospective operators — has faced lawsuits and controversy in protected lands.

The luxury chain operates 33 hotels and residences in 21 countries, including locations in the Bahamas, Bermuda, and St. Barts. Its Caribbean presence began in 1993 in the British Virgin Islands, and it now has plans for locations in Barbuda and Puerto Rico by 2028.

For two decades, Rosewood operated Caneel Bay Resort within the U.S. Virgin Islands National Park. The resort shut down in 2017 after Hurricanes Irma and María.

Hadiya Sewer, co-founder of the Saint John Heritage Collective, told CPI there is ongoing debate over the site’s future. While Caneel Bay was the territory’s second-largest employer, Rosewood’s tenure was marked by complaints about reinforcing racist and colonial dynamics between foreign tourists and local workers. The USVI were colonized by the United States in 1917, nearly two decades after Puerto Rico.

“Over the years, [the natural reserve] Caneel Bay has become increasingly inaccessible to the community,” due to the intense hotel activity in Saint John, Sewer explained.

The president of Rosewood Hotel Group is Radha Arora, while its chief executive officer is Sonia Cheng. She is the daughter of Henry Cheng, the third-richest man in Hong Kong, China, with a net worth of $19.5 billion as of February 2025, according to Forbes.

Linked to the destruction of critical habitats

Mandarin Oriental, another hotel chain that will operate in Esencia, opened its first hotel in the Caribbean in 2017 in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, an archipelago made up of 32 islands and islets.

In 2024, residents of Canouan Island protested against Mandarin Oriental, other resorts, and Canouan Resorts Development (CRD), which holds a 99-year lease for most of the island and its infrastructure.

Residents condemned fences that restricted access to the facilities and to the roads leading to the coast.

Back in 2008, Mandarin Oriental  — which has 43 hotels, 12 residences, and 26 luxury residential complexes in 26 countries and territories around the world — had announced plans to build a $400 million resort in Humacao, Puerto Rico. It was to be developed by Palmas del Mar Properties and Texas-based firm Hines Development. The plan included a $230 million loan from the Puerto Rico Tourism Development Fund, $18 million from the Hotel Development Corporation, and $80 million in private investment. Despite pledges of public funding and private investment, the project never moved forward.

The Tourism Company did not respond to the CPI regarding whether the Hotel Development Corporation ever disbursed the loan funds. Meanwhile, Iván J. Caraballo, spokesperson for the Puerto Rico Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority (AAFAF, in Spanish), said that neither the Tourism Development Fund nor the now-defunct Government Development Bank provided financing for the failed project.

Under scrutiny abroad

Aman Group’s Chief Executive Officer, Vlad Doronin, has been involved in legal disputes related to the purchase and control of the Aman Resorts hotel chain in courts in the United States, the British Virgin Islands, and the United Kingdom. This chain has been identified by investors as one of the potential operators of the three hotels in the Esencia project, although it is not officially listed on the project’s website.

Aman Resorts’ niche is building and opening hotels in or near historic heritage sites, especially UNESCO sites, such as West Lake in Hangzhou and Nui Chua National Park in China. In more than three decades, the company has led nearly 40 luxury developments across 21 countries and territories.

In January of this year, Albanian newspapers reported that the government approved a 1.4 billion euros (about $1.6 billion) project on Sazan Island, which would involve the development of 5.6 square kilometers of protected land. Aman Resorts would manage the project once completed by Kushner’s Atlantic Incubation Partners LLC, a corporation led by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of U.S. President Donald J. Trump. Kushner plans to include an exclusive marina, luxury residences, and retail shops as part of the complex.

The government of Albania designated Atlantic Incubation Partners LLC as a strategic investor, a category that allows permits and licenses for its projects to be issued through an expedited process, based on the premise that the multimillion-euro investment will economically benefit the tourism sector.

The Wall Street Journal reported that, months after Kushner presented the project, the Albanian Parliament amended a law to allow five-star developments in environmentally protected areas.

Marine biology specialist and project manager at the environmental foundation EuroNatur, Leonard Sonten, explained that Sazan is the only island belonging to Albania. Due to its isolation, the island has become a habitat for 75% of Albania’s endangered species, according to academic studies.

The Esencia project would be built in a corridor near multiple protected areas, such as the Cabo Rojo National Wildlife Refuge and the Lago Cartagena National Refuge. It is also located within the Southwest Special Planning Area, Boquerón Sector, which is home to endemic and endangered species, including the Puerto Rican nightjar (guabairo).

“Local residents don’t have enough information about the project (…) They see it as a solution [to the high unemployment rate, especially among young adults], but they won’t be hired there because they lack the skills [required by Aman Resorts], and foreign companies will be brought in to do the necessary work,” Sonten told the CPI about the project in Sazan.

“The government says that Albania needs to be developed and that our groups are against that development,” said environmental activist Xhemal Xherri, a member of the Organization for the Protection and Conservation of the Environment and Nature in Albania.

Two years ago, Europa Nostra, an organization dedicated to the protection of cultural and historical resources, denounced that the government of Montenegro had privatized the island of Sveti Stefan, along with its natural resources, through a management agreement that included Aman Resorts. Europa Nostra stated that both tourists and residents were denied access to the beaches and that even Sveti Stefan’s cultural identity was altered with the deal with Aman Resorts.

The hotel chain shut down in 2021 following a protest in which locals tore down fences that restricted access to the coast.

“Aman acts differently in each country, depending on the local authorities. For example, in Sveti Stefan, they insist on the privacy of beaches, while in Venice, they share the dock with their neighbors, even a dock that is fully in front of the Aman property. They respect Venice while disrespecting Montenegro. In Greece and certain other countries, Turks and Caicos, I think, and others, they share beaches – half private, while the rest is public,” Blazo Cazanegra, a member of the Group of Citizens from Sveti Stefan, told the CPI.

Meanwhile, Vlad Doronin received an order in 2015 from the San José City Council in Ibiza, Spain, to demolish a mansion he built illegally on a coastal forested area with a high level of environmental protection. He was fined 1 million euros. The tycoon has not complied with the order, as the legal dispute has dragged on for years.

To date, Aman Resorts has hotels in two Caribbean nations: the Dominican Republic and the Turks and Caicos Islands. If the Esencia project is built in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, it would become the chain’s third destination in the region.

This translation was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and clarity.