San Diego International Airport, just 24.7 miles north, has limited room for expansion due to its proximity to the city on one side and the bay on the other, making it the busiest single-runway airport in the country. By 2006, the U.S. Navy had also stated unequivocally that potential expansions for San Diego International Airport using Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and Naval Air Station North Island were not acceptable. That left a bi-national airport as the only viable solution — maybe.

Supporters and early efforts

Various entrepreneurs from both sides of the border had tried for years to develop plans to make airport cross-border travel work. These have included businessman Ralph Nieders, real estate magnate and civic leader Malin Burnham and Luis De La Calle, a Mexican economist and consultant, among others.

There were previous attempts to develop a cross-border airport called Twin Ports, utilizing San Diego City-owned Brown Field on the U.S. side and Tijuana International Airport in Mexico, but these failed due to financing as well as problems with land acquisition on the U.S. side. In addition, presidential permits would be required from both the U.S. and Mexican governments to make a new border crossing between Tijuana and San Diego.    

Meanwhile, there was increased interest in the project by Guadalajara-based Grupo Aeroportuario Pacifico (GAP), operators of a dozen airports in Mexico, including the one in Tijuana. Instrumental with GAP was the enthusiastic support of Enrique Valle Alvarez, Director of the Tijuana airport. Also supportive were the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce and the South County Economic Development Corporation.

Partners in developing the project

The key to success was the acquisition of land on the San Diego side, which was completed along with the required presidential permits in August 2010. However, an anticipated problem was the estimated US $8 million annual budget for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which CBP insisted be paid by the developer, since, according to its reasoning, the development was a private venture.   

Led by Alan Bersin, the previous chairman of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority and later U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary for International Affairs and Special Representative for Border Affairs, as well as the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an agreement was reached that the operators of a cross-border terminal would fund the costs of CBP. 

GAP strategic partners Eduardo Sanchez-Navarro, Carlos Laviada Ocejo and his wife, Laura Díez Barroso Azcárraga, were joined by Sam Zell of Chicago-based Equity Group Investments to fund the project. Land was then purchased on the San Diego side for the terminal as well as for parking spaces.

The Cross Border Xpress becomes a reality

There was some concern about what might happen to the cross-border terminal should Mexico ever close the border, making the planned San Diego terminal a white elephant.  Ironically, it was the U.S. that closed the border during the COVID pandemic.

With all objections overcome, construction began in June 2014. The distinctive terminal was designed by its architect, the late Ricardo Legorreta. Special arrangements had to be made to permit the primary contractor, Turner Construction, to build the bridge that would cross the border and construct the connections on the Tijuana International Airport terminal.     

After more than a decade and all real and potential issues solved, the cross-border terminal, renamed Cross Border Xpress (CBX), opened on Dec. 9, 2015. Grateful passengers began using the 390-foot secure skybridge crossing between Mexico and the U.S., eliminating long waits at the other land border crossings. The San Diego Terminal even has its own airline code designation: TJC. Access is available to 40 destinations within Mexico and two in China (Beijing and Shenzhen), as well as Phoenix in the U.S.   

10 years later

Since opening, 25 million ticketed passengers have used CBX, contributing to a 1.4% annual growth rate of Tijuana International Airport. There are 8,500 spaces available for short- and long-term parking. Uber and Lyft, as well as car rental companies, have designated pickup locations. Under the leadership of Jorge Goytortúa, Chief Executive Officer and his team, CBX and its facilities on both sides of the border continue to expand and make travel from California to Mexico seamless and easy.

Today’s air passengers take for granted the ease of accessing Tijuana International Airport from the CBX San Diego Terminal. Most have no idea how hard it was for the many players who made “the impossible dream” a reality 10 years ago.

James Clark writes for Mexico News Daily.

The post Tijuana’s CBX: The ‘impossible dream’ is now 10 years old appeared first on Mexico News Daily

The members of the business community became prime prospects for the sale of armored vehicles and hired bodyguards that protected their homes, offices and even guarded them when they went to restaurants. Tijuana’s restaurants, which had long been popular for business lunches, were still popular during the day, but few ventured out in the evening.   Many families that could afford to do so bought homes across the border in San Diego and Chula Vista. Many have never returned.

Tijuana’s teenagers, adults today, remember when almost all social events — parties, dances and dates were put on hold. Some didn’t go to school at all, while others were enrolled in private academies in San Diego. 

Tourism and healthcare businesses that catered to cross-border visitors were severely hurt.   

Tijuana’s reputation was so bad that when Tijuanenses traveled abroad, they said they were from “Mexico” or “near San Diego.” Some civic leaders even considered changing the name of the city.  

José Galicot and the revival of Tijuana

But by 2010, things began to change rapidly. How the bad times ended was and still is controversial. Mayor Jorge Ramos and his successor, newly elected Mayor Carlos Bustamente, were credited by some. Others point to the Mexican Army, which worked with civic leaders, police and state prosecutors to effect change in the police force and courts.

Nevertheless, the city’s reputation was ruined. Tijuana had a name in the world that was associated with crime and cartels. Locally, citizens had no pride in their hometown. Then one man, business leader José Galicot, worked to change it with one startling and high-profile event — Tijuana Innovadora.  

In 2010, Tijuana Innovadora launched its efforts to earn the trust and respect of key sectors of the community, including local, state and federal government, the private sector, national and regional media, business professionals, civil society, students and residents of the community. A tall order for a city whose reputation was so severely damaged.

José Galicot envisioned an exhibition so positive that it could change the image of the community. First, he booked the iconic Centro Cultural Tijuana (CECUT), the only structure of the federal Secretariat of Culture in the country outside Mexico City. Then, to fund the project, he made a list of the 50 largest companies in Tijuana, hoping to get a positive response from at least 20.  

The birth of Tijuana Innovadora

Instead, much to Galicot’s delight, all 50 agreed to help fund the project and to exhibit at CECUT.  These included Toyota, Welch Allyn, Kyocera, Plantronics (now Poly), Medtronic, Samsung, Honeywell, Foxconn and Bose.

High-level speakers were engaged, including President Felipe Calderón, entrepreneur Carlos Slim, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, broadcaster Larry King, Qualcomm’s CEO Paul Jacobs, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and Tetsuo Agata, an executive of Toyota … among others.  Manufacturing in North America was a theme highlighting the city’s achievements in technology, science and culture. English to Spanish translation aided in communications during all sessions. 

Attendance at the conference was 750,000 during its 14-day run time. Parents from all over the city brought their children to see the exhibits of companies where they worked. This instilled in the children pride in Tijuana that had not been there previously.

Tijuana Innovadora has continued on a bi-annual basis since its 2010 inauguration. In addition, it has spawned many other projects, including Art in Industry, Leadership Development, House of Ideas, InnovaModa (fashion and design focused), Paseo de la Fama (honoring bi-national leadership), Tijuana Verde (Green City), Comuna Creativa (Creative City) and Fablab (Digital Fabrication Laboratory).

A renewed sense of pride

From the concept of José Galicot in 2009 to improve the image and develop pride in Tijuana, Tijuana Innovadora today has worked hard to reverse regional migration as more San Diegans learn to call Tijuana home. They help to cultivate pride in the city and to offer creative outlets for its youth.  

Major universities such as Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (UABC), Centro de Enseñanza Técnica y Superior (CETYS) and El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF) attract students from both sides of the border.

Spurred by Tijuana Innovadora, the city today is home to 26,545 companies from 83 countries, including the U.S., with 348 companies, Spain with 53 companies, Japan with 53 companies and the United Kingdom with 27.

A thriving city of more than two million people, Tijuana is an industrial and cultural powerhouse. Perhaps, more importantly, residents are proud of their city.

James Clark writes for Mexico News Daily.

The post The man who saved Tijuana appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Its relationship with San Diego, its northern neighbor, has always been complicated by a border that follows no natural path but was drawn as a straight line after the war between Mexico and the United States. San Diego was neat and orderly with a great seaport and the advantages of being part of the richest U.S. state and the most prosperous nation on the globe. Tijuana was disorderly, dirty and part of a nation struggling with civil war.

What was Tijuana to do? It began to exploit the vices not available north of the border and to adapt its economy to American demand. Ironically, what was considered to be bad in Tijuana would become nice and good when eventually adopted by San Diego and the United States. 

In the 1920s, temperance became the law of the land in the United States. Bars were closed, and liquor sales were banned. But the bars and saloons were wide open in Tijuana.    

Those were the glamour days, when Tijuana was happy to sell liquor to thirsty Americans,  like the Bronfmans of Canada and the bootleggers and speakeasies in the United States. The Hollywood set and others flocked to Tijuana to slake their thirst. Caesar’s Restaurant opened in 1924 on the city’s main street, Avenida Revolución, and invented the Caesar salad to serve to hungry drinkers.  

But the day the 18th Amendment was repealed in 1933, Tijuana quickly became a ghost town.

What to do? Tijuana reinvented itself.  Casinos were legal in Mexico in the 1930s, but they weren’t in California. The Casino at Agua Caliente was built and owned by the same people who created Las Vegas — Mickey Cohen and Bugsy Segal of Los Angeles. The subsequent prosperity from gambling resulted in the Tijuana International Airport, named after Rodriguez, as well as a monument built in his honor.     

The casino and spa achieved a near-mythical status, with Hollywood stars and gangsters flying in to play — often with ladies who were not their wives (or husbands). Musical nightclub productions were broadcast over the radio. Margarita Cancino was discovered here, becoming the legendary Rita Hayworth. 

But in 1935, newly elected President Lazaro Cárdenas decreed an end to gambling and casinos in Baja California, and the Agua Caliente complex faltered, then closed. Tijuana again became a ghost town.

Then Japan attacked the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor, and millions of young Navy sailors from all over the United States arrived in San Diego. For the young men, San Diego was considered “pretty” but really, really boring.  

It was then that Tijuana — particularly its bars along Avenida Revolucion — became the destination of choice for fun for many of these military men. And Tijuana’s notorious “Zona Norte” red-light zone provided liquor and ladies for America’s finest. Bullfights lent “sophistication” and excitement for the young American who found that they, too, “weren’t in Kansas anymore.”  

Then the war ended, and, once again, Tijuana languished. American tourists still flocked to Tijuana, however, searching for what they could not get in the conservative Eisenhower era in their own country. 

Readily available were instant marriages and quick divorces. Ready abortions flourished for American women with unfortunate or unwanted pregnancies in Tijuana, despite abortion’s illegality throughout Mexico. Also popular were the topless shows at the notorious Blue Fox bar, where ladies did things with their anatomy that amazed and titillated, often with audience participation. 

Then came the 1960s and the sexual revolution in the United States.  Tijuana again fell on hard times.

In the 1960s, Tijuana discovered a new way of doing business with the Americans — free trade zones, where merchandise from around the world could be purchased for much less than north of the border. Without taxes, many beautiful stores opened in Tijuana, including Sara, Dorians, Maxim Imports and endless beauty supply stores and fashion outlets. 

Tijuana stores carried perfumes and excellent merchandise from Asia and Europe that attracted customers from both the United States and Mexico long before these items were available at the local San Diego department stores.   

Then after Mexico’s passage of the National Border Industrialization Program of 1964 and as Tijuana tamed the Tijuana River, — prone to flooding low-lying parts of the city — Tijuana found another sustainable way to bring prosperity to its people. The “maquiladora” program saw raw materials shipped to Tijuana for assembly and then returned to the United States as finished goods.

Since then, the maquiladora program has created a prosperous city that now exports almost US $200 million of sophisticated goods every day. Tijuana has become the global leader in television production, pacemakers, heart valves, orthopedic products, aerospace parts, and trucks. It is now the world’s largest center for the manufacture of medical devices. 

International companies with globally recognized names began to manufacture in Tijuana.   Companies such as Kyocera, Toyota, Hyundai, Samsung, Panasonic, SONY, DJO Global, Cubic Corporation, Solar Turbines/Caterpilar, Bose speakers, Sharp, and Welch Allyn opened maquiladoras.   

The next time you have your blood pressure taken, look at the equipment. Odds are it will say Made in Mexico by Welch Allyn — in Tijuana. There is Plantronics (now Poly), where the headsets used by the astronauts are made. More flat-screen televisions are made in Tijuana than anywhere else in the world.

During the last decades, Tijuana aerospace employment has almost doubled its size, reaching a talent pool of over 11,690 highly skilled employees. Mexico now graduates more engineers than the United States, a country more than twice its size.  Many are from Tijuana universities such as UABC, CETYS and TecNM. Local universities and technical schools have developed advanced and specialized engineering programs to sustain the growth of the sector. 

More than 37 Tier 1 companies and industry suppliers now operate in the city. This cluster represents the largest concentration of firms and employment of the aerospace and defense industry in Mexico.

The city offers a manufacturing ecosystem with a unique combination of competitive factors such as 30 years of manufacturing experience, world-class quality, competitive labor costs, and a local supply chain. Tijuana today has more than 50 state-of-the-art industrial parks.

Thriving drugstores sell medicines from the same international companies as in the United States, but at much lower prices. Many pharmaceuticals that require a prescription in the U.S. can be purchased over the counter in Tijuana, making this one of the reasons U.S. tourists come to the city.

Then there is real estate. Along the beautiful coastline of Tijuana and neighboring Rosarito Beach, foreigners can buy apartments and houses at one-third the price just north in San Diego County. In Tijuana’s center, more than a dozen high-rise condominium developments have become popular with American buyers, some of whom join the 70,000 daily commuters who cross north over the border to work.  

They choose to live in Tijuana for three main reasons: lower cost of living, a different, dynamic culture and family connections. 

The United States Navy recognizes Tijuana as the preferred residence for many of its civilian workers who use the U.S.’s Global Entry/SENTRI system to easily cross the border to their jobs on a daily basis, avoiding San Diego’s high housing costs.

These commuters are part of the more than 120,000 Americans living on the Baja California peninsula. Their needs are served by one of the largest US Consulates in the world, based, of course, in Tijuana.

Tijuana, which once thrived by offering Americans the opportunity to be bad, now prospers as one of Mexico’s industrial powerhouses. 

James Clark writes for Mexico News Daily

The post From boom to bust and back: Tijuana’s complex history with the US appeared first on Mexico News Daily