Tall & Urban News

Tijuana continues to transform, as the rush for condos fuels new high-rises, including what could be the tallest building in its history, to be completed by the end of the year.

There are roughly 400 new condos opening in 2019, with most squeezed into abandoned lots around the city’s exclusive golf course. Land constraints are pushing planners to strive for higher density and stoking tension in already congested areas.

Since 2016, at least 1,000 new condos and apartments across 30 residential buildings have risen across Tijuana. Seventeen of the city’s 20 tallest buildings were constructed in the last decade, and there’s no slowdown in sight.

The crown jewel of the city’s growth in 2019 is the 32-floor Sayan Campestre next to the city’s central golf course, Club Campestre de Tijuana. When it is completed in December, the 395-foot (120-meter) tower will become the city’s tallest building — unseating a condo tower constructed in 2008, the NewCity Diamond Tower, by roughly 60 feet (18 meters).

Sayan Campestre will be arguably the most high-end place to live in the city, with access to the golf course, valet parking, a car wash, outdoor gardens, a gym and spa, childcare, a sports bar, two to three parking spots for every condo, a park-style outdoor space overlooking the golf course with Armani furniture, and plenty of security.

Costs for the units range from $450,000 to $1.35 million, making it the most expensive of all Tijuana developments. Views from units are of the golf course, considered one of the most ideal locations in the city, because of its exclusive access.

Much of the residential development the past few years has surrounded the golf course, and it is beginning to look a bit like New York’s Central Park, where high-rise development surrounds open space. Unlike New York City, the general public does not have free access to the green area.

Sayan, based in Puerto Vallarta, is spending about $35 million on Sayan Campestre, said Rodolfo Aguilar, architect and partner in the project. To make sure they didn’t go broke on such an expensive project, the plan was to sell 35 percent of the condos in eight months. They sold 40 percent in the first month.

“We realized there was a lot of need for this,” Aguilar said, as he strode across the dusty concrete frame recently of a soon-to-be posh residential tower.

During the Great Recession, which was bad across the border in San Diego County, but just as dreadful in Mexico, residential construction slowed considerably, which real estate workers say meant a lot of built-up demand later.

“In 2007, Tijuana was in a coma,” said Sergio Arturo Gonzalez, business developer for the real estate agency Probien Bienes Exclusivos . “Nobody built anything.”

Almost all new buyers are affluent Mexicans who either saved up when there weren’t a lot of homes to buy, or who had good-paying jobs in the United States. In other cases, Mexican-Americans are buying after deciding to retire in Tijuana, say real estate agents. Also, people who want a home-away-from-home because they are in the city frequently are also becoming owners.

Additional development around the golf course includes the 38-unit Liv La Recta project and the 120-unit Levant Campestre, both opening in early to mid-2020.

Liv has also had plenty of amenities to woo buyers, such as a gym, pool, roof terrace and garden, concierge, closed-circuit cameras and event room.

There is a lot of need for buildings that mix multiple uses because of limited land. Tijuana has seen more proposals for mixed-use buildings and adoption of co-working ideas.

With that in mind, Cosmopolitan Group opened a hybrid co-working space and apartment building recently — part of its “Eazy Living” brand and named Eazy Rio — in the city’s business district Zona Río. It’s a bit like a WeWork office, where people rent a small office space, except you can take a nap in your own apartment during lunch hour.

On one side of the building, 96 apartments rent for around $1,000 a month and are 516 square feet (48 square meters) to 645 square feet (60 square meters). The other side of the building, separated by a door that can only be opened with a key, holds 17,760 square feet (1,650 square meters) of office space, aimed at startups and companies new to Tijuana.

“No one else offers something where you can work and live at the same place,” said Michael Goldstein, who heads the Eazy Living division. “You could go to the office in your pajamas.”

Goldstein said Cosmopolitan Group has already received interest from several American businesses, many of whom have said they felt overcharged in previous Tijuana office buildings.

Cosmopolitan Group is one of the biggest developers in Tijuana and has been at the center of rising tensions over new construction, recently over a road to a new residential tower. Opposition to its Life condo tower, across the road from Club Campestre de Tijuana, has led to media coverage in local publications and coordinated protests.

Parents and others are worried about the safety of students on the road leading up to its 45-unit building. It had been used by students of nearby schools for years. The company says it will work with officials to make the students’ path safer, but will not abandon use of the road.

For more on this story go to the San Diego Union-Tribune.