Black Jade, you are en extremely well informed person. Thank you form sharing your knowledge with the rest.
It is my understanding that these military facilities were either shut down or converted to civilian use and sold as commercial real estate.
The economy in Panama has tanked since we gringos left and has gotten worse since the the U.S. economy took a dive. (I decided to stay since I was born here and have family and friends here.) Therefore, the Panamanian Government is having a big problem selling off the housing units in Fort Clayton. I don’t know what is going on at Howard Air Force Base or Fort Kobbe. While they had planned to sell the houses there, I haven’t heard of any movement. The quarters at Fort Sherman were turned into, for lack of a better word, apartment hotels, where families use to like to go for the weekend. I don’t know how that is doing at this point. What use to be the School of the Americas has been turned into a hotel by an international hotel chain. Again, I don’t know how it is doing. I can’t imagine it has been very profitable because who would want to go to the middle of nowhere and stay at an expensive hotel? I also do not know what has happened with Fort Gulick. They were trying to sell the homes there, but I don’t know how successful that has been. Most people who work in Colon prefer to live in Panama City and travel back and forth. Quarry Heights was going to be a diplomatic resident site, but that didn’t work. I read sometime back where those large wooden homes required a maintenance of $18,000 a year with all the wood rot and termites that fall upon these types of homes. I’m not saying this was the reason. It was just an observation. The office buildings that were constructed of concrete are being used as Panamanian Government offices. I also haven’t heard of any movement in the sale of houses at what use to be Rodman Naval Base. There could be, but everything is very slow economically speaking. Cocoli will probably have to be bulldozed since it’s all wooden houses. Albrook Air Station was the first to be put up for sale while the economy was still okay, so I believe that all or most of the units were sold.
Mango Tree, let me quickly apologize, for anything inferred here.