5 photos from the developer
Under construction
Celeste
Santa María, Panama City
from $624k to $1.35M
- Unit types
- 3
- Smallest unit
- 190 m²
- Status
- Under construction
- Area
- Santa María
Panama's Municipio de Panamá publishes its building permits as open data, and Celeste is in the July–December 2024 file. Permit PC-878-24, issued 9 October 2024, covers "construcción de edificio de aptos. del proyecto Celeste" on Lote 30, Avenida Paseo del Norte, inside Santa María Golf & Country Club. The same record names the builder (Grupo de Ingenieros Contratistas, S.A.), the owning company (Celeste SM Ventures Corp.), the registered finca (30394826), a permitted construction area of 43,037.24 m², and a declared investment of $28,041,371.68. That is an unusual amount of checkable paperwork for a Panama presale, and it is the strongest thing about this project. Compare it with Empire Residences, a delivered tower inside the same gated community, where no source we could find names the developer at all. The second fact worth knowing is that Celeste is a pilot rather than a one-off. Reporting on the April 2024 groundbreaking quotes the developer directly: "Celeste es el primero de los cuatro proyectos de preventa que el Grupo Valor Development tiene planeados para Santa María." The other three are Corotú, Guayacán and The Woods. Buying here means buying the first building of four from the same developer inside the same gates, which cuts both ways and is covered below.
Celeste prices and floor plans
| Unit | Beds | Baths | Size | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Modelo A | — | — | 249 m² | — |
| Modelo B | — | — | 210 m² | — |
| Modelo C | — | — | 190 m² | — |
Where Celeste actually is
Celeste sits on Lote 30, Avenida Paseo del Norte, in the Juan Díaz township, according to its municipal building permit. The street address is worth having, because Santa María is a 284-hectare master plan and the towers inside it do not all face the same thing. Listings for Celeste consistently describe two orientations, one toward the Santa María golf course and one toward the Costa del Este skyline, presented as a choice at the point of sale rather than assigned. Ask which exposure a specific unit has before you look at its price, because the spread between broker quotes for the same floor plan is wide enough to suggest orientation and floor level are doing real work in it. Grupo Valor's other three Santa María projects occupy separate lots in the same community and are different products rather than repeats of this one: The Woods is single-family houses and duplexes, Guayacán is larger four-bedroom apartments, and Corotú is a separate residential concept. Celeste is the only one of the four that is a high-rise tower.
What’s included at Celeste
- Teens' lounge
- Jacuzzi
- Gym
- Children's pool
- Lap pool
- Splash park
- Wine bar
- Zen garden and yoga deck
- Games lounge
- Coworking space
- Gourmet room
- Sky lounge
- Padel court
- Kids playroom
Who Celeste suits — and who it doesn’t
Buyers who want a family-sized apartment rather than a pied-à-terre, since every standard unit here is three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms at 189 m² or larger, with a family room, a service room with its own bath, and two to three parking spaces. Buyers who want a paper trail before they commit, because Celeste has a published municipal building permit, a named builder of record and a registered finca, which is more than most Panama presales offer. Families specifically: the amenity list is weighted toward children and teenagers in a way that is unusual for a golf-community tower, with a splash park, a kiddie pool, a kids playroom, a teens lounge, a game lounge and a paddle court alongside the adult spaces. Golf-community buyers who want to be inside the gates rather than adjacent to them, and who work in or near Costa del Este.
The delivery date has already slipped in public and the developer's own marketing has not caught up. As of this check in August 2026, celestesantamaria.com still says "Estamos entregando los primeros departamentos a finales del 2025", a date that has passed. The Agency Panama, Panama Equity, Metro Realty and InmoProyectos now show 2027, while InmoPanama, MMS Realtor and Prime Real Estate still show 2026. The building permit was only issued in October 2024, six months after the ceremonial groundbreaking, which makes 2027 the more plausible of those. Treat any delivery date you are quoted as something to get in writing with a late-delivery penalty clause attached.
You would be buying the first of four Grupo Valor projects announced for Santa María. That means years of adjacent construction inside your own gated community after you move in, and three newer buildings from the same developer competing against your unit on resale in the same location.
Panama's pre-construction track record is the background risk, and expat forum posters are blunt about it. A long-running thread on expat.com warning about Panama real estate includes a buyer whose Punta Pacífica unit was promised for 2009 and deeded in 2013, who reports that "once they got our initial 30% deposit there was little if any communication". The same thread describes developers advertising 90% sold while unsold units remained at handover. That is worth holding against Celeste's own "más del 75% vendidos" claim, which sits on the same page as the stale 2025 delivery date.
Every standard unit is a 189 m²-plus three-bedroom, and the two penthouses run to $1,350,900. There is no small format anywhere in the building, so the entry ticket is around $600,000 and your eventual resale pool is limited to buyers who want that much apartment inside a golf community. There is also no secondary market to price against yet. We found no Celeste resale or agent listings on Encuentra24, and Compre o Alquile blocked access entirely, so every price we publish here comes from developer and broker channels rather than an open portal. We could not confirm a Celeste-specific HOA rate, and no source we checked names the architect.
Before you buy at Celeste
Status is under construction. The paperwork you can check before you speak to anyone: building permit PC-878-24, issued by the Municipio de Panamá on 9 October 2024, plano PO-HAC-256-2023 RDP-4568, builder of record Grupo de Ingenieros Contratistas, S.A., owner of record Celeste SM Ventures Corp., finca 30394826, permitted construction area 43,037.24 m², declared investment $28,041,371.68. All of it is in the municipality's published permit report for July to December 2024.
Note that the owner on the permit is Celeste SM Ventures Corp., not Grupo Valor Development. A single-project company is normal practice in Panama, but it means your contract counterparty is probably that entity rather than the group whose name is on the marketing. We have not verified the relationship between the two at the Registro Público. Ask for it in writing and have an attorney confirm the corporate chain and who is actually liable if the project stalls.
Grupo Valor Development lists Solana, Marea I, Marea II, Aria and Portales as delivered projects. That is a real track record and better than the alternative, though we could not independently verify whether any of them were delivered on their originally quoted dates.
The payment structure we found quoted by one aggregator is 10% on reservation, 20% during construction and 70% at closing. The developer did not confirm it, so treat it as a starting point. Read our guide to buying property in Panama before you sign anything, and have an attorney work through the promesa de compraventa, the purchase promise contract, for four things buyers get caught by: the deposit-forfeiture terms, any material-cost-escalation clause letting the developer raise the price after you sign, whether the balance falls due when the occupancy permit is issued rather than when your unit is actually finished, and whether the developer can charge you monthly rent on the outstanding balance while your financing clears. Do not sign the acta de entrega, the handover document, while repairs are still outstanding. Once you accept the keys the developer can attribute those defects to you.
FAQ
When will Celeste actually be delivered?
Public sources disagree, and the developer's own site is the most out of date of them. As of August 2026, celestesantamaria.com still advertises "entregando los primeros departamentos a finales del 2025". The Agency Panama, Panama Equity, Metro Realty and InmoProyectos show 2027. InmoPanama, MMS Realtor and Prime Real Estate show 2026. The municipal building permit was issued on 9 October 2024, six months after the April 2024 groundbreaking ceremony, which makes 2027 the more credible figure for a 42-storey tower. Get the current schedule in writing from the developer, with a late-delivery penalty attached.
How much does an apartment at Celeste cost?
Our range is $623,580 to $1,350,900, which spans the whole building from the entry-level 189 m² three-bedroom to the larger of the two penthouses. Both ends are independently corroborated. The Agency Panama publishes the same $623,580 floor, and The Agency and MMS Realtor separately price the roughly 380 m² penthouse at $1,350,900. These are developer and broker list prices rather than open-market asking prices, because Celeste is still under construction and no resale inventory exists yet.
The entry price is where sources disagree. Quotes for the same 189 m² floor plan vary by about $36,000: Panama Equity shows $587,650 ($3,109/m²), MMS Realtor $605,340, Metro Realty $610,000, InmoPanama and PanamaRE $617,446, and The Agency $623,580 ($3,300/m²). Ours is the highest of the six, so budget from the top of that spread rather than the bottom. The 210 m² model is quoted at $724,500 to $730,000 (about $3,450 to $3,476/m²) and the 249 m² model at $846,600 to $907,532 (about $3,400 to $3,645/m²). Confirm the live price for the specific unit, floor and orientation before you commit.
Are there any Celeste units listed on Encuentra24 or Compre o Alquile?
We found none. A search of Encuentra24's apartments-for-sale inventory in Juan Díaz, the township Santa María sits in, returned no Celeste listings when we checked on 4 August 2026, and Compre o Alquile blocked access from our tools entirely. That is what you would expect for a building that has not been delivered: presale stock moves through the sales office and brokers rather than being posted as individual portal ads, and there are no resale owners yet. The practical consequence is that there is no independent open-market price signal for this building. Every figure available today comes from the developer or from agents selling on its behalf.
Who is building Celeste, and have they delivered before?
Grupo Valor Development is the developer, founded by Jorge Gallo with Mario Pérez and Sergio Bosso as partner directors. Their delivered projects include Solana, Marea I, Marea II, Aria and Portales. The builder of record on the permit is Grupo de Ingenieros Contratistas, S.A. Note that the owner of record is a separate single-project company, Celeste SM Ventures Corp., which is normal in Panama but means your counterparty is likely that entity rather than the group. We could not independently verify whether Grupo Valor's earlier projects were delivered on their originally quoted timelines.
Does Celeste have a construction permit?
Yes, and you can check it yourself. Permit PC-878-24 was issued by the Municipio de Panamá on 9 October 2024 for "construcción de edificio de aptos. del proyecto Celeste" at Lote 30, Avenida Paseo del Norte, Santa María Golf & Country Club, Juan Díaz. It appears in the municipality's open-data permit report for July to December 2024, with plano PO-HAC-256-2023 RDP-4568, a permitted construction area of 43,037.24 m², and a declared investment of $28,041,371.68. Most Panama presales have no publicly verifiable permit record, so this is a genuine advantage.
Is Celeste titled property?
The land almost certainly is, though we have not verified it ourselves and the page shows title status as unknown for that reason. The building permit records finca 30394826 against the lot, and a finca number is a Registro Público title folio, so this is titled land rather than a Right of Possession. Your individual apartment is a separate question. Units become their own sub-fincas only after the completed building is registered under Panama's propiedad horizontal regime, which has not happened yet, so a buyer today holds a contract on an unbuilt unit rather than a deed. We read the finca off the municipal permit file and did not pull the folio at the Registro Público, so have an attorney check it for liens and encumbrances before any deposit.
How many apartments are in Celeste and how big are they?
104 apartments across 42 levels, per the developer. Every standard unit is three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms in one of three floor plans, 189 m², 210 m² or 249 m², each with a family room, a balcony, a service room with its own bathroom, and two to three parking spaces. There are also two penthouses of roughly 380 m², the larger of which sets the top of our price range at $1,350,900. There is no studio, one-bedroom or two-bedroom stock in the building.
What are the HOA fees at Celeste?
We could not confirm a Celeste-specific rate. Santa María generally runs around $1.50 per m² per month, which would put a 189 m² unit near $284 a month, a 249 m² unit near $374, and a 380 m² penthouse near $570. One broker listing shows an HOA "from $100", which does not fit that rate for units this size and we would not rely on it. Get the actual figure in writing, and be aware that in Panama the developer typically controls the homeowners' association for the first year.
What is the deposit and payment plan at Celeste?
One aggregator listing quotes 10% on reservation, 20% during construction and 70% at closing. We could not confirm that with the developer, so treat it as indicative. Whatever structure you are offered, have an attorney check the promesa de compraventa for deposit-forfeiture terms, any clause letting the developer raise the price for material costs after you sign, whether the balance falls due when the occupancy permit is issued rather than when your unit is finished, and whether the developer can charge you monthly rent on the outstanding balance while your financing clears.
