The New Place, South

It’s natural when things happen without explanation that people make up stories from what they know, from what they hear over there and what gets said over here. So it goes with Riviera Troncones, a new real-estate project south of Troncones, located just before the beaches of Buena Vista. When large excavating equipment headed that way last fall, what they left behind looked a lot like a golf course—a primary road approaching a series of mounds and valleys that were interconnected by smaller roads.

Then, some signs went up announcing “Desarrollo Rivieria Troncones”, its DRT logo not saying anything at all about the project. The chisme, the gossip, changed, a luxury 500-room resort being described more often than a golf course. Both rumors had people nervous about water usage. The often-repeated sentiment was that this development would destroy Troncones by bringing in a constant flow of unaware, let-me-play-through, feed-me, cruise-ship-like vacationers.

When the Rivieria Troncones website went up this past spring, it described a 150-lot housing development, containing a clubhouse and a beach club. That seemed preposterous. A tropical Levittown of sorts. A gated community right above Buena Vista. Who would buy there? Who would want to live there? It’s so far away from everything. Then the sports cars came rolling through this summer, a series of sleek, tinted-window, high-end performance vehicles crowding around the T, revving up, parading like they were in a big-city rally and spending the night at the fanciest place in town. The chisme got meaner. This has got to be some gangster scheme. They’re out of touch with what Troncones is about. I kept asking myself, “Who are these people?”

I did some research online without getting a lot of information on who, exactly. There was no face, no blingy uber-investor with bright-white teeth. I walked into the Brisarena Real Estate office just south of the T hoping to find out more because occasionally there’s a DRT truck parked out front. A flat screen TV and some modern furniture caught my eye before I saw anyone in there. The TV was playing a video describing Riviera Troncones, extolling its commitment to re-using rainwater. Out from behind the TV came a friendly-eyed man with a neatly trimmed beard, who introduced himself as Raúl Hernandez, someone I’ve seen bicycling along Manzanillo Bay more than once. I never knew his name before. Following him was Ausencio “Chencho” Solís Hernández, a local dignitary, the former president of the TronconesSaldita Hotel and Restaurant Association, who was part of the state of Guerrero’s new zona turística announcement this past August. [That announcement designated the municipality of La Unión as Guerrero’s fourth tourist destination, along with Acapulco, Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, and Taxco. The area of La Unión includes the villages of Troncones, Majahua and Saladita.]

Raúl and Chencho were okay with my snooping around, my wanting to learn what DRT was all about and my asking questions about who was behind all this. In fact, Raúl offered to connect me with someone from DRT directly, letting me know that while he and Chencho represented the development, they were never meant to be the face of the project. Within a couple of days, I had an appointment to meet Humberto Armendaríz, who I’d seen on Instagram talking about Riviera Troncones wearing a pressed shirt and sounding like a salesman. When Humberto came in to meet me, he had on a Cookie Monster t-shirt. Total badass, but far from being a menacing gangster. He did have dark shades.

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A TOUR OF RIVIERA TRONCONES

Humberto and I started our interview in Spanish, but then slipped back and forth between English and Spanish the rest of the two hours we spent together. He’s from Monterey, where he worked at a marketing agency, coming to Troncones to be Riviera Troncones’ master broker when his brother-in-law and a friend got clearance to develop the property. Humberto named names, his brother-in-law being Carlos Salinas and his friend is Alberto Cortes. Alberto and Humberto have been in Troncones for a year.

When I asked “Why now?”, Humberto explained, “It took the partners eight years to get the property ready for development. There was a lot to do to make that happen. And now the time is right. Troncones needs to expand to keep growing. It needs to have development that is sensitive to the environment, that is sustainable and forward-thinking.” Oh, boy, here comes the sales pitch, but it never came. Instead, Humberto talked about the freedom people feel when they come to Troncones and the hospitality of the community, how Troncones welcomes people from all over the world without asking who they are or what they’re doing here.

As we got back to talking about the development, I learned 21 of the 170 lots have sold and 10 more have moved into promisario mode, the binding pre-contractual phase of every real-estate purchase in Mexico. Humberto described the clientele as being, “people with good energy, family-oriented and quiet, nature-minded, looking at getting a beachfront experience without the enormous costs.” DRT has plans to offer two clubhouses with owner amenities; one at the beach providing common spaces, a snack bar and a pool, and the other, inland, away from the hustle and dust of the road, offering a gym, a restaurant, a co-working area and another pool. Each lot comes with the option of picking from one of six house designs, all six offered with a specific palette of colors. Homeowners are welcome to bring in their own architects, but will have to conform to specific restrictions on lot coverage and plantings. This place has rules. It’s not do-what-you-want. Each house is required to have a water capture system, a cistern, solar panels and water heaters.

Humberto asked, “Do you want a tour?” We got in my car and set off to the site. On our way, I thanked him for re-grading the dirt road. That made getting through the area a whole lot easier during the rainy season. I also asked him, “Why those cars?”, pointing out how out of place those are here. “You know, Guerrero doesn’t have the best reputation,” replied Humberto. “The United States has Level Four travel warnings about coming here because of ‘crime and violence’. Crazy. It’s so peaceful. We brought those cars here so people could see there was no danger, that high-end cars like that were safe, that people coming here are safe.”

Once we came up to the last rise before the boulevard entrance, I could see where the beach club is under construction, on the right. A crew and a backhoe were busy working on an open building, with a pyramid-like palapa roof, that sits on a small hill. It was easy to imagine the infinity pool that will extend out towards the ocean, and the sloping pathways that will go down to the beach. I turned left down a 20-meter-wide boulevard, palms creating a center line like something out of Los Angeles or Palm Springs. [Even if the wind off the Pacific has whipped the first set of trees into salt shock.] Humberto explained the first stretch of road was to set the mood, that the guard house, guest parking and the main clubhouse would be well within the development. “The clubhouse is going to be the hub of the whole place. Our bike paths and our shaded ‘green’ areas will lead people right to it. And behind the clubhouse is where we’ll have the huerta, the orchard and vegetable garden.”

As we got closer to where the clubhouse will be, we came up on a set of white letters spelling out “R-I-V-I-E-R-A”. I must have looked puzzled. Humberto explained, “We donated the Troncones, the letters T-R-O-N-C-O-N-E-S, to the town. It’s at the beach, right next to where the turtle sanctuary is, just before the bridge, across from Cuattro. We saw that the town didn’t have a sign like that, so we donated ours. It does make these letters look a little strange all by themselves here. But we’ll get that fixed soon.” Soon. That was an odd choice of word, because despite all the work that’s being done, this does not feel like a rushed project. It seems methodical.

I asked if there was an overall architect. “We started out working with Carlos Narváez Cantú. He works out of Monterrey,” answered Humberto, “But he does work around the world, in Spain, Germany, all around Mexico. He has an office in Barcelona. We’re lucky to have him. He said he’d only put his name on this project if we did things his way. The idea of the 20-meter streets and the 12-meter side streets is his. He came up with the layout and framework for what we’re doing here.”

By then, we were at the top of the property, at an overlook, up above the chopped hillside that’s currently the development’s most prominent landmark from the road to Buena Vista. The view back down, looking west, is stunning: a set of winding streets in a jungle of green, connecting to a main road towards the beach; the Pacific reflecting the afternoon sun, the breeze off the ocean rising steadily up the property and creating some relief from the day’s heat. Humberto said, “I’m going to have to build a platform up here. People love it and, once they get up here, they seem to get what we’re doing. They see how it all fits together.” He’s right. From up there, Riviera Troncones looks like a giant garden.

On our way out of the development, we stopped at the beach club construction. Humberto introduced me to Alberto Cortes who was guiding the work inside the new palapa. Alberto smiled when I told him I was glad to put a face to this project and that there’s been a lot of misinformation and chisme about what Riviera Troncones is all about. He said he understood, and added, “Our other two partners are from the state of Michoacán. They’re well-known there. One has a role in the government, the other owns a large construction company. We have to do something to correct the misperceptions here. We’ll do that soon, once we build this out a little more so people can really start to see what we’re doing.” Like a tour guide, Alberto went on to say, “This is a great area. So many interesting people, so much to do. It’s a natural paradise. My family, my children, love it here.” Then he switched back to speaking like a master builder, looking ahead, “We’re not letting anyone build anything that blocks someone else’s view. We want to be in harmony with the land and the community. I think people will come to appreciate that and what we’re doing here, how it fits in with what’s already in Troncones.”

Fitting in isn’t cheap. Sitting down with Humberto in the Brisarena office, we started talking about the cost of owning a lot. We did that mostly in U.S. dollars, that the typical, average 500-square-meter lot will cost about $100,000 USD, including closing costs. Construction of a house is likely to range from $250,000 to $350,000 USD, depending on size and finishes. Plantings, furniture and the rest of what people want inside will push the ready-to-move-in costs close to $450,000 to $550,000 USD. “That’s if they only buy one lot,” pointed out Humberto. “If they buy two lots, they’ll have more room to build and the costs will be higher. Our first sets of buyers have looked at what’s available around Troncones, most of it is a lot higher, and they see that Riviera Troncones is a solid investment for them and for their families.”

Taken from the Riviera Troncones regulations:

Riviera Troncones is an exclusive real estate development with a unique and privileged location in the town of Troncones. It sits within a beach zone on a lot of approximately 150,000 square meters, surrounded by wooded areas and just 500 meters from the beach, where there is an additional 1,000-square-meter lot for a private beach club reserved for Riviera Troncones homeowners.

The community features a gated entrance managed by private security, plus recreation areas, green spaces, and a clubhouse for the exclusive enjoyment of residents. It’s more than just a development—it’s a lifestyle. Here, in a stunning natural setting, every family member can enjoy peace of mind, stay active, ride bikes, relax by the clubhouse pool, soak up the sun and even surf right at the ocean’s edge.

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The philosophy behind this development centers on living in harmony with nature, creating a space where the main attraction is not the buildings themselves, but the natural beauty of the surroundings, offering the highest possible quality of life.

That’s the dreamy part. Vamos a ver. Let’s see what happens. I wonder what the chisme will say now.

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Desarrollo Riviera Troncones

https://www.rivieratroncones.com/

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