Business View Caribbean | Volume 8, Issue 8

56 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN VOLUME 8, ISSUE 8 Also, during the same time, the company made a huge investment of time and skills at the El Conquistador Resort. They have been working on renovating the hotel and recently opened 230 rooms and are striving diligently to open another 130 rooms before December. Fullana notes, “Those 230 rooms were fully booked for June, July, and August. To give you an idea, the El Conquistador website in May got 1.5 million hits in one month. It seems that everyone needs to get out of their house after 18 months. Most of the tourists who come to Puerto Rico are from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Right now, our guests are about 50 percent local and 50 percent from the tri-state area.” In 2018/19, F&R Construction worked on an astounding 23,000 hurricane-ravaged houses, under the government STEP program covering repairs up to $15,000. They were one of four Construction Management companies, and the only fully local JV, that had a contract with the Dept. of Housing; using CDBG-DR funds to repair up to $60,000, and to demolish and reconstruct new homes up to $250,000 in the northeast region of Puerto Rico, for families whose houses were damaged by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in Sept 2017. Fullana explains, “We finished those under the first program called STEP, now we are in the second program, which is R3. Relocation, Renovation, and Reconstruction. Under that program, there are close to $55 million in AT A GLANCE F & R CONSTRUCTION GROUP, INC. WHAT: Puerto Rico’s leading general construction contracting company WHERE: San Juan, Puerto Rico WEBSITE: www.frcg.net n