By Gabriela Rico | Arizona Daily Star
Nogales, Sonora’s first master-planned community has residents flocking to the affordable-housing development, creating a critical mass that is now attracting retail and industrial investment.
Five years into the 20-year residential, commercial and industrial project, Puerta de Anza recently signed a lease for its first grocery store and is in talks with a manufacturer to open a plant inside the development, where it will be close to the 15,000 current residents and potential employees.
Eleven siblings from Hermosillo, Sonora, make up the development company, Grupo Garcia de Leon, and future plans call for a new port of entry from the United States into the community.
“They are creating the future of Nogales,” said Mike Hammond, president and CEO of Picor Commercial Real Estate Services in Tucson, who has signed on to recruit industry into the development.