Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Paseo Interlomas, a new mall in the neighborhood

I live near a zone that is thriving with commerce and new residential developments, Interlomas. This zone has a variety of shopping centers, both small and large, supermarkets, cinemas, schools, a university, etc. The growth of this zone in the last years has been astounding. This growth has brought a lot of traffic to the zone and it lacks some roads to be better communicated (see Hueyetlaco).

So, why not, let's make a new shopping mall, one of the largest in the Mexico City area.

This new mall is currently under construction. It will be called "Paseo Interlomas". It was designed by the Fernando Teruya Design Studio and built by GICSA. This mall will feature 15 movie screens (5 of them VIP), an ice skating rink, two mayor department stores (Liverpool and "Palacio de Hierro"), about 79,000 square meters (~850,000 square feet) of retail. Bellow you can find a rendering of the project, click on it to see more images:

Paseo Interlomas 

I like new projects that beautify the city and the space we live in. I also expect the projects to be reasonable and include adequate planning and impact mitigation measures. For what I have read, this project also include a road plan to help cope with the traffic that will generate.

The mall is projected to open in summer 2008, although by judging the current progress I would say it will open near the end of 2008 or beginnings of 2009.

UPDATE: you can find a followup to this article here.


Quote of the Day:
Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death.
--General Omar Nelson Bradley

3 comments:

ECC said...

Ojalá que sirvan las "medidas de mitigación" porque el trafico por ahí es horrible... ME han contado

Anonymous said...

what? another mall? where are they building this one? near the peugeot or where? there's no more space!!

Anonymous said...

As someone who has been deeply involved in the architectural team responsible for the design of Paseo Interlomas, here are some details

- RTKL Associates, Inc in Dallas is the design architect of the project.

-The the posted image shows the project's second and approved scheme. The initial scheme was of an open air mall. Most of the images on the internet about Interlomas show the first scheme. That has now been replaced by a second scheme in which the mall is completely enclosed (air-conditioned).

-Fernando Teruya was the design lead for the project at RTKL before he left the firm. He is responsible for the design of the first scheme and he sketched out a rough layout of the plan for the second scheme. The overall style and appearance of the second and current scheme (what is shown in the image) was generated by the remaining project team members at RTKL.

-It is anticipated that Paseo Interlomas will be a relatively upscale shopping center, will be of a higher quality design and will contain a lot more tenants than the existing centro comercial of Interlomas about 1 km away from the site. The site is at intersection of Via de la Chamapa and avenida de la Barranca, directly opposite from the new hospital. Site work has already begun. It is a steep site, with as much as a 60 meter drop.

-There will be some creative traffic solutions that should remedy the anticipated traffic. It has been a very challenging problem, to say the least.

-If all goes well, Paseo Interlomas will be a very handsome structure that the city will be proud of. The posted image does not show materials or views of spaces at street level. Expect for it to be colorful and with lots of dramatic lighting at night.