Ambitious Project Aims to Revitalize Capital's Run-Down Historic District

By Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service

MEXICO CITY -- Anibal Navarro hunched over his chessboard, studying his next move. It used to be harder to concentrate, when his Black Horse chess club
began playing in this downtown park five years ago. He was competing then for space with knife-carrying thugs.

But now the distractions in storied Alameda Park are different and welcome. To the growing number of chess players in suits and suspenders who come here every
day, the clanging and clatter of construction around them is as sweet as the chocolate in their croissants.

"Look around. It's a different place," said Navarro, 68, a retired engineer whose daily trips to the park are what officials, private investors and historic
preservationists have in mind as they pursue the most ambitious urban renewal project in Mexico's history.

Improvements are starting to show, one year after a meeting attended by President Vicente Fox; the mayor of Mexico City, Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is
positioning himself for a run for president in 2006; and Carlos Slim, a businessman and one of the richest people in the world.

Huge tax incentives for private investors, hundreds of extra police officers, new surveillance cameras outside buildings, and improvements to streets and underground
plumbing have begun to mend the tattered appearance of the country's historic district. With new buildings rising and old ones being demolished -- and more people
venturing downtown -- the most significant improvements in more than two decades are taking shape.

"I see a lot of movement, a lot of construction," said Adrian Pandal, director of the Historic Center Foundation, a new private organization working on the renovation
project. "What is going on in Mexico City has happened in many cities of the world -- the center was abandoned and then people realized they couldn't recreate it.
We have 750 years of history there, irreplaceable buildings. So you go back and fix it up."

The core of Mexico City -- the oldest city in North America -- has long been considered one of the world's great historical treasures. But as people moved to the
suburbs and the downtown area became seedier and more dangerous in the second half of the 20th century, fewer people toured the museums and the centuries-old
buildings.

The current focal point of the renovation effort is a 34-block area that runs from Alameda, a park with Baroque fountains that was the site of witch burnings during
the Inquisition, to the Zocalo, one of the world's biggest public plazas, often compared in size and importance to Moscow's Red Square. Last week, bright red
double-decker buses began operating to make it easier for tourists to see the area.

Pandal said Slim, a major landowner in the district, has donated $100 million to the effort.

Slim is part of nearly every Mexican's daily life. He owns Telmex, the former state-owned telephone monopoly. His chain of Sanborn's restaurants and stores are
staples with moderate prices across the country. The flagship Sanborn's is in the famous House of Tiles, a blue-and-white tiled 18th-century mansion in the historic
center.

Slim has extensive holdings of property and businesses in the district that will benefit from the renovation. But officials said his backing of the project is a huge boost
to the renovation, which will bring new tourism and business revenue to the capital.

The biggest new private investment in the area in two decades, a splashy $75 million Sheraton hotel, is set to open next month. It towers over Alameda like a
25-story exclamation point of steel and glass. A brand new nine-theater cinema just opened alongside the park, too. And another hotel plans to have chocolates on
the pillows by Christmas.

Navarro, the chess player, said that if officials make the area safer -- and he has noticed improvement since he arrived in 1997 -- investment will surely follow.

But some people said the problems in the district are so great that it will take years and much more money to bring about substantial change.

For instance, the renovation is complicated by the fact that many buildings are sinking unevenly into soft soil; the heart of the city was built on a lake bed and the
aquifer underneath is drying up. For years, major efforts have been undertaken to save listing cathedrals and sinking buildings. Now hundreds of millions of additional
dollars have been committed to underground waterworks projects, aided by international loans. Engineers are working to stabilize the land, capture rainwater in the
aquifer so that it does not continue to diminish and fix the sewage leaks.

The rescue of the historic district, the nation's cultural focal point since the Aztecs built their pyramids about 500 years ago, appears also to be aided by the mayor's
political aspirations. Lopez Obrador, who has pumped $50 million of city money into the project this year, talks of the project constantly, including last week in his
annual address to the city. He is expected to run for president in 2006, and many say he is counting on showcasing the downtown improvements.

"Over the next year, you will see a lot change," said Ana Lilia Cepeda, the mayor's point person on the project. She said 600 building facades will be restored or
scrubbed. New street lighting, landscaping and a reflecting pool are planned, all supervised by some of the nation's most renowned architects, including Ricardo
Legorreta, who has designed numerous landmark buildings in the United States and Mexico, such as the Hotel Camino Real and the Papalote Children's Museum in
Mexico City, and the Children's Discovery Museum in San Jose, Calif.

Many people have said the joining of federal, city and business forces for the project might not have been possible a few years ago. Fox, a conservative businessman
who has many friends in the private sector, toppled the 71-year political dynasty of the Institutional Revolutionary Party in 2000. Lopez Obrador, a left-leaning
politician with a populist flair, is only the second elected mayor of the capital in modern times. Before, the mayor was appointed by the president.

"There is a favorable environment now to get things done," Cepeda said.

In most world capitals, the downtown area is expensive real estate, but not here. And the government is making it even cheaper. With federal and local tax breaks
and other monetary incentives, the government is encouraging development of new theaters, restaurants and apartments.

Many say the project's success will depend on persuading more people to make their homes in the center. That would help keep the place safer and cleaner, officials
said.

The area has many cultural and architectural gems, from the 14th-century ruins of Aztec temples in the Templo Mayor to the 20th-century Diego Rivera murals inside
the spectacular, white marble Bellas Artes building. But Mexicans and foreign tourists interviewed on the streets said they would come more often if they didn't have
to step over garbage and if things just looked a little spiffier.

"There are so many beautiful buildings here. It's just a shame that they have been so poorly maintained," said Luis Bamiero, 25, a computer engineer from Spain who
was touring Mexico City last week.

Bamiero said he was surprised by how beautiful and inexpensive the sites were; some world-class museums here charge $1 or less for admission. Interviewed while
admiring the newly refurbished gilded interior of the old post office, Bamiero said the insides of many downtown buildings were stunning, but that their exteriors were
dirty and neglected.

"And in the end that is what tourists see," he said.

                                               © 2002