Mexico City is buzzing with energy, fuelled by a population that, over the past five years, has grown by about 700,000 to reach 22.5 million. Tourism is booming too, surpassing pre-pandemic peaks. This surge in residents and visitors has sent demand for housing, office space, restaurants and retail into overdrive, keeping developers and architects on their toes. Here we highlight three entrepreneurs who are doing things a little differently.
1.
Best for: The high life
Meir Lobatón Corona
Glance at Mexico City’s skyline and you’ll see clusters of reflective buildings. “They don’t make sense in this temperature,” says architect and developer Meir Lobatón Corona. Mirrored buildings might work in cities such as New York but not here, where the temperature is relatively mild.
Monocle is visiting Torre Gutenberg, a recently completed 13-floor office tower in Anzures, two blocks away from Chapultepec Park, designed as a flexible structure. When tenants take occupancy of a floor, they move into a cement-and-glass shell that’s designed to be transformed over time and can be repurposed as an apartment or hotel room. “We thought, ‘Since we’re going to build it, let’s make it last’,” says Lobatón Corona. “The only way to do this was by building it as a structure, not as an office tower.”
From inside Torre Gutenberg, where the look is softened by travertine floors and oak panels, you can see the entire city unfolding before you. “It’s completely transparent,” says Lobatón Corona. Unlike many contemporary office towers, these spaces aren’t temperature-controlled grey boxes. Every floor has a large balcony with big glass doors and windows that allow air and light to flood in.
Torre Gutenberg is a well-ventilated, bright space that will hopefully be as relevant in 50 years’ time as it is today. “We’re starting to understand that we don’t have to innovate just for the sake of doing something new,” says its designer.
Barrio to watch: Escandón
Wedged between Condesa and San Pedro de los Pinos, Escandón offers easy access to the city centre.
Prices
A two-bed flat costs between MX$6.5m and MX$6.7m (€296,000 to €305,000) on average.
Local finds: Sorbo
The area’s smallest wine bar, with the laid-back atmosphere of a Sicilian enoteca.
Ingenieros 41, Miguel Hidalgo, 11800
2.
Best for: Rethinking the office
Andrés Martínez, Iterativa
When Andrés Martínez, a co-founder of Iterativa, discovered an office building on Reforma Avenue that had stood empty during the pandemic, he decided to bring it back to life. Iterativa partnered with an investment fund, which took over the lease, and then set about redeveloping it. Today it houses offices and a restaurant and nightclub, as well as co-working space Público.
Iterativa doesn’t completely own the buildings that it works on. “We find the opportunity, execute the project and operate it,” says Martínez. Alongside co-working spaces, the company is rolling out hotels and serviced apartments to meet the demand for housing and accommodation in Mexico City. When Monocle meets him in the Reforma 333 building, he shows us around the businesses that now occupy the former office block.
Público, which has big grey couches and glass windows that look out at the city’s Angel of Independence, was designed to be a hub where creatives could collaborate. “Instead of following the WeWork recipe of creating a huge common area and little spaces, we spread out the communal areas in different parts of the building,” says Martínez. Despite it being a towering office block, he was adamant about giving it personality. “We wanted to design the building [like a] house, to create something much more natural where people can meet.”
3.
Best for: Adaptive reuse
Rodrigo Rivero Borrell, Reurbano
Developer Reurbano has a well-earned reputation for breathing new life into Mexico City’s historic buildings through adaptive reuse and urban regeneration. And in a city that’s peppered with architectural gems awaiting restoration, there has been no shortage of structures for the firm to work with.
When Monocle meets Rodrigo Rivero Borrell, founder and CEO of Reurbano, on the edge of the leafy Condesa neighbourhood, he whizzes us around the ground level of Zamora 15, a mixed-use space that, when completed, will also have 20 apartments. When he purchased the 80-year-old buildings in 2014, they had been abandoned for more than 25 years. Today Zamora 15 houses not only his brick-clad office but also an array of tenants who are all young entrepreneurs.
For Rivero Borrell, the choice of renters is integral. If there isn’t enough variety, “you lose a lot of the value,” he says. At a building that he developed in Roma, Reurbano welcomed tenants such as Eno, a restaurant chain popular with local residents, but also kept a grocer who had been in the building for years.
“The grocer is very important to the community,” says Rivero Borrell. “When you see what these people who belong to a community contribute to their area, you realise just how much good you can do by keeping them there.”
And while fostering a sense of locality and belonging is good for residents, the grocer’s presence also makes sense financially. “You cannot imagine how much a well-selected commercial space on the ground floor increases the value of the properties,” says Rivero Borrell.
Read more from Monocle’s 2025 Mexico Survey: