Caves, condos and a carrot? Mais oui ... French designer Philippe Starck and his backers have big plans for Latin America.

If you've never heard of French hotel designer Philippe Starck, that's OK. There will always be plenty of demand for the more-pedestrian offerings of the Hiltons and Sheratons of the world. Starck, who has made lemon squeezers that resemble giant spiders and a "tooth" stool shaped like a human molar, also created the offbeat interiors of some of the world's hippest new urban digs--New York's Paramount, Miami's Delano, Tokyo's Nani Nani. Now he's come to Buenos Aires.

Until now, other than the stylish interior of Mexico City's Teatron restaurant, now closed, Latin America was the one piece missing from Starck's global design empire, which runs the gamut from high-end real estate to ordinary consumer goods--toothbrushes, wristwatches and chairs sold at U.S. discount store Target. In May, the 54-year-old visited Buenos Aires to oversee construction of his latest project, El Porteno. When it opens in May 2004 the US$37 million complex will provide what Starck describes as a self-contained universe comprised of what he calls "cultural caves," swanky restaurants, bars, art galleries, clothing boutiques and performance spaces amid 80 custom-designed lofts and a six-floor luxury hotel.

El Porteno will occupy the skeletal remains of a 15,500-square-meter, red brick granary overlooking the Rio de la Plata. Designed piece-by-piece in England and assembled in 1902, the longtime city landmark was a crumbling icon of Argentina's industrial age until it was saved from the wrecking ball by Starck's local partner, fashion businessman Alan Faena. Starck and Faena, doing business as the Cosmic Carrot Group, are renovating the gutted skeleton of the building, retaining only the shell of the former granary. "I don't care what the final product looks like but only what it communicates about life, in this case the lively energy, raw talent and craziness mixed with elegance that defines Buenos Aires" says Starck. "We have to replace beauty, which is a cultural concept, with goodness, which is a humanist one."

Starck remains stubbornly idealistic about his sometimes mass-marketed work--but also bent on getting it noticed. For example, he once posed as Napoleon for a publicity shot. But such antics, like his work, are part of what has made Starck such a marketable brand the world over. So long as the he can keep up public interest, El Porteno's team of backers--a half-dozen foreign private-equity investors--seem eager to play financier to his fashion revolution.

For all its architectural and cultural transcendence, however, El Porteno remains at its heart a profit-seeking real estate project, and a risky one at that. For starters, it's being built on spongy ground on Costanera Sur, a man-made outcrop that most portenos rarely set foot on, even though it's just a stone's throw from downtown and a strip of fashionable restaurants at the Puerto Madero docks area.

Surrounded by abandoned factories and tall grass just a few years ago, the neighborhood has the manufactured look and feel of an urban planner's design for the future. For developers, however, that's its greatest charm. El Porteno rises above the city's biggest green space, an unspoiled tract of swamplands ideal for jogging and bird watching known as the Reserva Ecologica. But, at least for now, the site lacks basic amenities--laundromats, cash machines, grocery stores--and entire buildings are vacant; the neighborhood has the uncanny feel of a ghost town.

Snob appeal. Then there's the question of whether portenos can even afford such accommodations in the wake of the 2001 economic collapse. The going price for an average-sized 80-square-meter loft is $184,000, making it the most expensive real estate in the city, similar to Palermo Chico, Buenos Aires' millionaire's row.

For now, such fears seem more a problem for El Portenos competitors Even though construction was on standby for over a year as Argentina struggled with domestic economic chaos, El Porteno's 80 units are 45% pre-sold, says Faena. Stratospheric asking prices are possible, even in the total absence of a functioning mortgage market, say real estate observers, because much of Argentina's upper class has its residual wealth stored abroad but no comparably luxurious place in Buenos Aires in which to invest. "It's always easy to find 100 snobs when your product is one of a kind," says Domingo Speranza, managing director of South American business development for Cushman, Wakefield & Semco.

Private investors are especially gungho about El Porteno's potential as a tourist attraction. With the peso's devaluation, foreign tourism has spiked to 25% annual growth. A third of the building's space is reserved for restaurants, galleries and shopping. Austin Hearst, grandson of U.S. media mogul William Randolph Hearst and an investor in El Porteno, says cultural attractions will make the hotel a major draw for the record 5 million tourists expected to arrive next year to Buenos Aires. "There's a global gold standard in designer hotels evolving and this is the first in what is becoming a more and more popular travel destination," says Hearst.

Road to Rio. With their celebrity designer in tow, and tourism as their cosmic carrot, the same team is hard at work expanding more modest versions of the concept to other cities in the region. In May, Starck and Faena broke ground on a Starck-designed hotel on Ipanema beach in Rio de Janeiro. Hearst says Cosmic Carrot is also looking at projects elsewhere in Latin America and in Spain. The workaholic designer behind it all proclaims indifference to specific regions or projects, but he admits to a certain affinity with his newfound environs. "People in South America live the way I do," he says. "With lots of passion and in a permanent state of creation."