At least 50 buildings in Mexico City will be transformed into apartments in the coming months as part of the local economic reactivation plan, according to the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing ( Seduvi ).
Carlos Alberto Ulloa, head of the agency, said during the Discussion on Reactivation Actions in Construction, that the Planning Institute of Mexico City will be in charge of carrying out the reconversion project.
Thus, buildings with dozens of offices in the capital will be converted into homes. To date, there are only two projects like this registered, and in order for others to do so, they will provide facilities for the change of land use or will provide support during the procedures of the interested developers.
“Something that the pandemic left us was that they stopped having activities in offices and people started to work from their homes, for this reason, the developers have found the possibility of converting a percentage of their offices into living spaces. We will provide the facility for this to happen and we will only need the change of land use of the property to be able to make the conversion to mixed uses and apartments ”, he pointed out.
The official pointed out that in particular there are two types of buildings that could be used for this conversion project. He noted that both are between 25 and 40 years old and preserve necessary characteristics that can be adapted to a home.
The Association of Real Estate Developers (ADI) pointed out that there is interest in working on this model, because there is economic viability, in addition to the fact that the buildings have water, drainage and electricity, services that provide the ability to do the change.
On June 25, the Mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, held a meeting with the president of ADI, the president of the Mexican Business Council and Grupo Kaluz, Antonio del Valle, and other businessmen on this topic.
At that meeting, the first agenda was made with a view to the economic reactivation of the capital and the generation of jobs in the construction, services, and entertainment sectors.
At that meeting, the mayor announced that it was already “working on it so that, in less than a month, the decree is already in place and all these activities can begin to take place.”
However, according to El Financiero, only 9% of the residents of the capital will be able to access one of these new homes that the capital government is projecting in empty buildings located in corridors such as Santa Fe, Polanco, Insurgentes Sur, and Reforma, where the average cost per apartment is between 10 and 15 million pesos.
“They will be offering the same product that we have in Mexico City, which is declining in sales […] 85% of the apartments in CDMX reach only 9% of the population,” said Ignacio Torres, CEO of the consulting firm 4S Real Estate.