During the coronavirus pandemic, many companies sent their collaborators to telework as a measure to avoid coronavirus infections. Although some companies kept their offices, others left the spaces empty due to the uncertainty of when it would be safe to work in a closed place again.
As a result, in 2020, corporate real estate development had high vacancy rates. In Mexico City, for example, the indicator grew 40 percent during 4Q20 compared to the previous year, according to the consulting firm Solili. However, markets such as Guadalajara and Puebla remained more stable.
Which companies held on to the hundreds of square meters that “cushioned” the fall of the sector? The consulting firm Datoz says it was the tech companies.
31.2 percent of the total profitable area in the Jalisco capital belonged to the software company Wizeline, HCL, an information technology company and Arrow, of electronic components.
Its offices are located in the main corporate corridors of the city: López Mateos Sur, Zona Financiera and Puerta de Hierro, and have 4,000, 1,200 and 2,700 square meters respectively.
Wizeline, a San Francisco-based company, has had a presence in Guadalajara since 2016. It started with a space for 50 employees and a year later decided to open a second office to house 200 workers. Two years later it celebrated a new opening in the La Perla District and reaffirmed his idea that the city of Guadalajara could become the new Silicon Valley.
“Mexico has to focus on a place to make a technology innovation center comparable to Tel Aviv (Israel), Bangalore (India), so that when people think ‘we are going to invest in a center outside of Silicon Valley ‘Guadalajara is on the list of the three best places, ”said Bismarck Lepe, CEO of the company, in an interview with Milenio.
HCL also has solid operations at the site that have allowed it to have stability to continue with offices in Jalisco. The company of Indian origin, inaugurated in 2016 its Global Operations Center in the entity, a strategic place to provide nearshore solutions to the whole world and to approach the Latin American market.
For more on this story, go to Obras.