Pattaya - The 75baht perday Condo

[dirtydog]

Many months and months ago I saw billboards in Pattaya advertising condos for sale for 75baht perday, the pictures looked nice, massive swimming pool threading its way between the buildings, grass and park area and several months into the world recession, so I didn't think much about it as I assumed it would just be shelved for a couple of years, then a month or 2 ago, probably longer I visited my land to battle with the jungle, (an ongoing battle) and there was their billboards, a few hundred meters from my land, they got a massive corner plot on Chaiyapruk Road next to Silk Road Village, Chaiyapruk Road is one of the only good roads on the wrong side of Sukhumvit, that was the main reason I bought my land there, 4 lanes of concrete with hardly any traffic, aint nothing like those crap parking lots like Soi Khao Talo or Soi Nern Plub Wan which are just constant traffic jams.

So its 8 buildings of 8 storys high and called Koral Home Resort & Residence, buildings A B C D the back condos overlook Silk Road Village which is a nice high end village, buildings E F G K the high floors should get sea views, albeit the sea is 4km away, probably the 3rd floor and up should be able to glimpse the sea at Jomtien.



The 1 million baht Pattaya condo, well, 950,000baht at the moment, normally the prices go up as they sell more, ok 30 square meters aint going to give you much room to swing a cat but they probably won't allow pets so you shouldn't come across that problem.



Of course if you got an extra 85baht perday you could upgrade to something a bit bigger with its own outdoor jacuzzi and garden




This map shows where the condo is being built, albeit it isn't scaled very well, from the plot to the beach at Jomtien is a 4km drive, also the Lotus and Outlet Mall it shows are actually on the corner of Sukhumvit and Soi Thepprasit Road which is also about 4km from the building site.

Their website does claim it is a "2 minutes away from the hustle and the crowds of the city center," I assume they don't mean Pattaya but that is the nearest city and I didn't see a helicopter pad on the plans, I could get to the beach in 2 minutes from there, but people might complain about me driving at 180km down Soi Chaiyapruk, obviously if I get caught at the red light on Sukhumvit that would blow the timing way out, probably a bit of literary license on that I think. But if you reckon 5 to 10 minutes to the beach depending on the lights and 15 minutes into town you wouldn't be far off.



So this is where they are at today, they got a builders camp set up to keep the guys on site, got half a dozen or more towers for the pile driving, a picture of a couple of the towers and a load of driven piles.



Seems to have gone up to 85baht perday but thats inflation for you, just means one less beer everyday, or in some of the more upmarket places maybe one less drink per week.



Billboard showing what the park will look like.
Looking at their website and the artists impressions it looks like its going to be quite smart thekoralpattaya.com



Anyway this thread will probably drag on for a while as they do the building, then of course they have Christmas and New Year holidays coming up, then Songkran, should be all finished this time next year

[dirtydog]

Well today is Sunday and they are still working away, I had a chat with one of the workers and he reckons a year to finish, so if you take into account holidays, sick days etc probably about 14 months, in the background you can see Silk Road Village, not to sure how they feel about a 8 story building next to them, then again it's better than a Thai shanty town or a Thai market with loud speakers which it was before.

Pilings, these go pointy end down, you can see the wire loops so they can move them around and get them set up in the pile driver.



One of the pile driving towers, you can see infront of it the pilings he has already done.



The whacker, there most likely is a proper name for this, no idea what it is though, just a big weight they drop onto the cap on the piling, also find some sack cloth under the cap to protect the concrete a bit.



The pulley system for the weight and the motor.



Next we move onto the steel workshop, not quite a luxurious working environment but it does have a couple of toilets at the end, also noticed some extra cess pit lids that Thai toilets are fixed to so they must be building some more.



The rebar bending machine, bit hard to bend this size rebar with a couple of crow bars, they have a long table set up to the right to run the rebar along.



A few pieces of bent rebar ready for going into the concrete, actually I'm not sure what the small rebar at the front of the picture is for, maybe drainage or something, the top left squares are probably for the posts.



Footings, Obviously going to be a big condo, this footing is set on 4 piles, they have done quite a nice neat job of it.



This footing is the corner one, bit smarter than your normal square footing, I assume there is going to be some internal feature here.



A section of footings already poured with post steel work in place.



Lots and lots of completed footings, although they still have hundreds to go yet, assume they are getting steel shuttering made up for the posts as doing the form work in wood would be too expensive for so many posts.



Now remember, if you want to discuss the 85baht perday there are already 3 threads for that, if you want to know more about the 85baht perday you can contact the company, this isn't the thread for that and I'm not interested enough to ask them.

[albarb]

Many months and months ago I saw billboards in Anyway this thread will probably drag on for a while as they do the building, then of course they have Christmas and New Year holidays coming up, then Songkran, should be all finished this time next year

It seems to me that for 1 Million Bath, there are better opptions to buy Condo's closer to the water - and not on the Dark Side....??

[dirtydog]

^This is a construction forum, not a buy a condo forum, if you want to buy a condo in Pattaya look at some real estate agents websites.

So it was back to the Pattaya condo building today after chopping down more trees in the jungle, seems my son only has until next week off from college so we shall have to go down there everyday this week if we want to stand a chance of getting ahead of the growth.

Here they are setting up one of the piles, ie getting it straight and into the bore hole, they have pre drilled a lot of holes as the pilings are real close together.




Looks pretty straight to him, time to whack it down.



You can see the I frame steel on the ground so they can drag the tower about.



Obviously these piles need cutting down to size.



There is our triangle footing, he's doing a neat job of that.



The beam work has started, plenty of big rebar in there.



The big view of the beam work done so far. Doubt this section of the condo is going to be 8 floors, maybe the reception or whatever they have at the entrance to condo units.

[Gerbil]

Hmmm.... Looks like it's going to be quite nice.

Problems as I see it are:

a) No lifts, so top floor appartments will be a bit knackering to get to.
b) Bit too cheap so will sell to 'less desirable' neighbours.
c) Looks from the floor plans that as you go up the outside stairs to your appartment, you'll be overlooking the outside 'garden/jacuzzi' of the other appartments - which rather limits their possible 'entertainment' usage.

[dirtydog]

a) If you look here you can see the lifts Condo PATTAYA, CONDO FOR SALE - The Koral Pattaya home resort and residence in pattaya thailand, Condo PATTAYA and Residence, Resort Condominium, pattaya, chonburi, thailand next to the stairs, 2 lifts per building.
b) could be right, saw in the nation that prices start from 760,000baht.

20% of Koral Pattaya presold

By The Nation
Published on September 28, 2010

Baan Ratchaprasong Group has presold 20 per cent of its Koral Pattaya condominium project worth Bt2 billion.

CEO Montien Innoi said yesterday that the project had only 1,572 units on 18 rai (2.9 hectares). The one- and two-bedroom apartments are priced starting at Bt760,000 per unit. The project will have its grand launch during the 23rd Home and Condo Show at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre from tomorrow to Sunday.

c) could turn the jacuzzi into a fishpond I suppose

[msl3232]

Thanks for all the info i will be in pattaya next week and looking for a little investment i think i might check it out.
regards mark

[dirtydog]

Another drive down to the land, went down Jomtien Beach Road, still pretty much lacking in tourists, maybe next month.

Pretty sure this is going to be the condo sales office as it is on the corner of the 2 roads, the triangle footing is on the left, one road is on the left the other behind me, although if it is going to be a sales office why did they put pilings in, can't imagine a 4 story or more sales office.



Posts wrapped in plastic to stop the sun drying them out too quickly.



Plenty of rebar at top although the whole floor area is only 10 meters by 10 meters, got to admit I have no idea how many floors this building will have.



Today I caught them just as they were going to move one of the piling towers, the pile driver thinks of himself as a train driver I think, pretty sure this wouldn't be allowed in the UK but it is a real quick way to move the tower.

If you look at the I beams on the ground they are at a funny angle to the tower, these are his rail tracks so to speak, also plenty of supports under the I beam to stop it sinking into the dirt as the tower is moved.



This isn't your everyday car jack, they used this to jack up areas of the tower to take the weight off of the I beams so they could move them.



That cable is connected to the pile driver motor and a pulley hooked round the I beam, at the end of the I beam the cable is just looped round it.



Here's the pulley, now all he has to do is turn the pile driver motor on, engage the gear and see what happens



And here is what happened, took less than a minute.

[dirtydog]

Well they seem to be moving along at a good pace, the next floor beams are done and they are putting down matting on the supports, then they just got to cut and tie all the rebar and they can do the concrete pour for that floor, assume they will use a concrete pump for this.

Also had a chat with one of the workers, this is going to be a 3 story building, not sure why they used pilings for it as that is a bit over the top, but I suppose if you got the pile drivers there and buying piles by the hundred, a couple of dozen for this building isn't really an expense.



You can see the black, I assume rubber based matting.



No chopping up small lumps of wood for the supports, I assume they have had these acro's made up in Thailand somewhere, never seen them for sale in any of the Pattaya hard ware stores I use.

[dirtydog]

Well I have no idea what they got to hide, got there today and started taking a photo when the site foreman started screaming, "No Photo, No Photo, Get Out, Get Out", there really are no trade secrets to building a 8 floor condo in Pattaya so not sure what his problem maybe, personally I don't give a toss whether they sell them all or go bankrupt, pretty sure Silk Road Village would prefer them bankrupt rather than having massive buildings overlooking their housing estate.

So the last photo, I really got no idea what this building is for, the alloy framework is for false walls, ie plaster board, room divisions seem 2.5 meter wide, also an external wall is using this framework.

[king of uranus]

Looks like a fairly well-run jobsite -seen far worse in Thailand. I guess the foreskin was worried your pics would land him in jail if the thing fell down. This ain't America where you get away with that crap. Seems like I hear reports from Asia from time to time where the crappy builder ends up in prison when he skimped on the rebar.

EDIT to add; I bet the developer would have a word with that guy if he knew of your farang exposure you gave him here.

[dirtydog]

I bet the developer would have a word with that guy if he knew of your farang exposure you gave him here.

This thread if it had run would have got probably 70 times more views than their website, so it would have been good advertising for them and interesting content for us, not that it matters, shall find a house build to follow, not so much work and don't take as long