Loreto readies for luxury resort development

Loreto, one of the sleepier resorts on Mexico’s Baja California Sur coast, treasured by tourists for its beaches, diving and fishing, just got a wake-up call.

A Spanish property company, Fadesa, this week revealed plans to build thousands of vacation homes and hotel rooms in Loreto. The $5.4-billion project, dubbed Loreto Paraíso, would dwarf any other development in the tranquil town on the Gulf of California.

The new resort will be aimed at wealthy clients, particularly Americans who are increasingly looking at retirement homes south of the border.

“The project is very close to the United States, and it’s being designed fundamentally for Americans,” a Fadesa spokeswoman said.

The company did not disclose when it would build or complete Loreto Paraíso or what it would charge for homes and rooms there. But in a press release Monday, it outlined the project’s major elements:

• More than 7,000 rooms in luxury, boutique and “upper-upscale” lodgings, plus fractional, time-share and condo hotels.
• A residential area with about 6,500 homes, including apartments and villas.
• Four golf courses.
• A marina.
• “Large” leisure and entertainment areas.
• A “significant” ecological conservation area.

Loreto Paraíso is by far the biggest of four projects that Fadesa is developing in Mexico. The others are in Guadalajara, San Miguel Allende and the state of Nayarit near Puerto Vallarta.

The town of Loreto is one of five areas, along with Cabo San Lucas, Cancún, Huatulco and Ixtapa, that the Mexican government targeted for tourism development three decades ago. But Loreto has lagged behind the four others in adding facilities.