A new highway project better linking Mexico City to Zihuatanejo could reveal this Pueblo Mágico to the world

The municipality of Valle de Bravo has been Mexico City’s upland retreat of prime for decades, a lakeside assemblage municipality and Pueblo Mágico successful the conifer forests of México authorities wherever the capital’s nonrecreational people comes to decompress connected weekends. What astir nary 1 has noticed yet is what volition hap erstwhile a large federally funded road connecting Valle de Bravo to the Pacific seashore opens successful 2029.

The Mexican national authorities is upgrading Federal Highway 134, which connects the Toluca portion to the Pacific formation edifice metropolis of Zihuatanejo connected the Guerrero coast, with a committed fund of astir 18.6 cardinal pesos (about US $1 billion). 

Valle de Bravo has agelong been CDMX denizens’ spot to remainder and reconnect with nature. A revamp of Federal Highway 134 volition extremity up making it casual to shuttle betwixt Valle de Bravo and Zihuatanejo, making it importantly quicker to commute to the formation from Mexico City.

The infrastructure project, presently astir 33% complete, volition importantly trim the thrust from the Valle de Bravo portion to Zihuatanejo — from much than 8 hours to astir four. 

The existing Federal Highway 134 is simply a two-lane upland way that demands afloat attraction and adds important clip to distances that look much manageable connected a representation than they presently are by car.

Combined with Valle’s existing two-and-a-half-hour roadworthy transportation to Mexico City, the task volition make a triangle of entree that fewer places successful Mexico tin offer: a large planetary city, a upland situation with a developed residential landscape, and a pristine Pacific coastline, each reachable from a azygous address.

This result has not yet been wide talked about, and the marketplace does not yet bespeak it.

What Valle de Bravo really is

Valle de Bravo’s historical center, with its cobblestone streets and lakeside promenade, is the mentation of Valle that astir visitors see. It is besides lone portion of the story.

A procreation of innovative, environmentally conscious Mexican architects person been playing successful Valle de Bravo for years, designing homes that integrate themselves seamlessly into the area’s wood onshore and wetlands, similar this location designed by the Mexico City architectural steadfast Estudio Temporal. (Dezeen)

The residential scenery present that draws semipermanent residents with play homes extends crossed the surrounding wood and countryside, wherever elevations scope from 1,800 to 2,600 meters supra oversea level. The clime shifts considerably crossed that range: cooler and much heavy forested astatine altitude, warmer and much unfastened little down. A car is adjacent to essential; the communities that marque up Valle’s residential cloth are dispersed crossed terrain that does not lend itself to walking.

It is successful this broader residential scenery that a procreation of Mexican architects has produced immoderate of the much softly influential residential enactment successful the country. The homes present are modern and minimalist, built with gorgeous volcanic stone, cantera and floor-to-ceiling solid positioned to framework circumstantial views astatine circumstantial times of day. Outdoor terraces relation arsenic superior surviving spaces. Trails from backstage properties pb into the surrounding conifer forest. 

The plan connection is 1 of integration with the scenery alternatively than imposition connected it, and it produces a prime of beingness hard to find astatine comparable terms points elsewhere successful Mexico or, for that matter, North America.

“Valle de Bravo has each the ingredients to go a genuinely planetary destination”, says Luis Romo from Minkoba, a section existent property firm. “What makes it peculiar is however overmuch assortment you tin find successful specified a tiny area. Within conscionable a fewer kilometers, you tin spell from warm, lakeview neighborhoods to cool, dense forests wherever you’re wholly surrounded by nature. That diverseness is besides reflected successful the architecture and successful the manner radical take here.”

Romo besides noted that he’s seeing increasing involvement from planetary buyers. 

“Foreign buyers are discovering that Valle offers thing unique: beauteous earthy surroundings, a large prime of life, a wide scope of existent property opportunities, and casual entree to 1 of the largest cities successful the world.”

Valle de Bravo is astatine a “very absorbing moment,” Romo says. 

“It inactive feels authentic and comparatively undiscovered internationally, but it has the imaginable to go 1 of Mexico’s astir desirable residential destinations successful the years ahead,” helium says.

Central to its entreaty is its determination wrong a federally protected earthy area, which has preserved the surrounding conifer forest, keeping the aerial prime acold cleaner than polluted Mexico City. 

Residents besides person casual regular entree to fresh, section integrated produce: Certified-organic farmers successful the country bash nonstop location delivery, with immoderate adjacent offering online orders.

A caller existent property marketplace for overseas buyers?

Few places successful Mexico tin connection a large planetary city, a upland retreat and a pristine coastline from 1 address. (Alejandro Linares/Wikimedia Commons)

The ongoing enactment connected Federal Highway 134 covers 317 kilometers oregon roadway and includes widening the road from 2 lanes to 3 — with immoderate cardinal sections being widened to 4 lanes. The task is besides gathering elevated bridges, underpasses and bypasses to destruct the bottlenecks that presently marque the upland way truthful slow. 

The afloat corridor runs from Toluca done the Nevado de Toluca area, Temascaltepec, Tejupilco, Ciudad Altamirano and Coyuca de Catalan, and, finally, to Zihuatanejo. As of aboriginal 2026, enactment is advancing on a 38-kilometer agelong betwixt Tejupilco and Temascaltepec. 

Full completion is projected for December 2029.

The existent Valle-to-Zihuatanejo thrust takes much than 8 hours. The projected clip aft completion is astir four.

Valle de Bravo, with an established residential scenery and an international-city transportation that astir coastal alternatives lack, has received comparatively small attraction from buyers looking extracurricular Mexico’s much acquainted expat destinations. But that could alteration erstwhile this road task finishes.

“I deliberation the caller Zihuatanejo road has the imaginable to enactment Valle de Bravo connected the radar of a overmuch larger planetary audience,” says Romo. “For radical who physique their lives astir the outdoors, Valle offers an unthinkable scope of activities that are each accessible wrong minutes.”

The triangle

What the operation produces is simply a well-positioned triangle of entree that has not antecedently existed for Valle residents: a applicable three-point transportation betwixt a world-class city, a high-quality upland situation and the Pacific coastline.

The road does not alteration what Valle is; it changes what Valle tin offer. Mexico City has ever been the lawsuit for the region. Mexico City, the wood and a four-hour Pacific seashore is simply a antithetic conversation, and it is 1 that the marketplace has not yet had.

How that speech develops, and what it means for spot values successful the region, is simply a question that existent property professionals successful Valle are opening to analyse closely. 

Nolan Clack is the laminitis of Qué Onda Valle, an English-language work covering Valle de Bravo.