All the Water You Can Drink: One Million Office Workers, 10,000 Water Points

An office can have drinking water and still provide poor access when its location or functionality limits who can actually use it. The difference lies in something rarely measured in a property: its effective capacity to serve the people who use it.

In Mexico, Article 18, Section VIII, of the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Regulations requires employers to provide workers with “drinking water outlets and disposable cups or drinking fountains.”¹ However, the general regulations reviewed do not establish a ratio of access points per worker.

The scale helps put the challenge into perspective. The main office markets across northern, central and Bajío Mexico had more than 10 million square meters of occupied space as of the second quarter of 2026, according to SiiLA. Applying the occupancy factor of 9.3 square meters per person established for offices under Mexico City’s Complementary Technical Standard for Architectural Design yields a theoretical occupancy load of more than 1 million people.

That population makes it possible to translate water access into infrastructure. The 2024 International Plumbing Code calls for one drinking fountain per 100 occupants in office buildings and other business occupancies. If that ratio were applied solely as a benchmark to the occupancy load above, it would amount to more than 10,000 drinking water points. Although this is not a requirement applicable to Mexican offices, it illustrates the physical scale that an obligation can take when expressed as a ratio, which is not the case here.

Mexico, in fact, is not entirely unfamiliar with this way of measuring it. Regulations specific to the rubber industry require one sanitary drinking fountain for every 30 workers or a fraction greater than five, and also require them to be conveniently distributed. The provision does not apply to an office, but it shows that Mexico’s regulatory framework has linked water access to both occupancy and distribution.

However, increasing the number of water points does not by itself guarantee access²; the underlying question is when water can truly be considered “available” as a property’s occupancy increases.

The answer seems simple: when someone who needs to drink water can do so without the space itself creating an additional barrier. The number of points, their location and functionality determine whether that remains possible as occupancy increases. This is not a trivial distinction for those working inside, since hydration can affect performance.

A controlled trial involving 64 young adults after 12 hours of water restriction illustrates this. Those who drank 500 milliliters improved their working-memory test scores by 22.2% and reduced their fatigue scores by 55.3%. Among those who received no water, by contrast, fatigue increased 50%.³

For an office, then, occupancy determines not only how much space a population needs, but also the infrastructure required to serve it. When that capacity is insufficient, the infrastructure itself determines how far the space can function, even when square meters remain available. Water thus reveals that a property can run out of capacity before it runs out of space.

Currently, about 1.8 million square meters of office space are available in the markets analyzed, equivalent to roughly 15% of existing inventory, according to SiiLA. For those looking to occupy some of that space, comparing properties means considering not only their physical characteristics, but also whether their services, facilities and amenities can meet the needs of those who will occupy them.

Looking for an office? Analyze and compare hundreds of offices across Mexico’s main markets on SiiLA SPOT or contact us at contacto@siila.com.mx.

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¹ Regarding water quality for human use and consumption, see NOM-127-SSA1-2021, which establishes the permissible quality limits for water intended for human consumption.

² A study conducted at University of California, San Francisco facilities found one water source for every 80 students and employees; when only those that were clean, unobstructed and had satisfactory flow were considered, the ratio fell to approximately one for every 108 people. In the United States, accessibility standards also address the distribution of drinking fountains by floor and area, as well as approach space, height and operation, and the U.S. Access Board recommends considering different forms of access at each location when significant distances separate units. In the United Kingdom, regulations require drinking water supplies to be adequate, readily accessible and located in suitable places. See Kalair, N., Mousli, L. M., Jacobs, L. M., Schmidt, L. and Kearns, C., “Worksite Access to Fluoridated Tap Water and Retail Beverages: An Assessment of the University of California, San Francisco Campuses,” Journal of the American Dental Association, vol. 153, no. 3, 2022, pp. 201–207; U.S. Access Board, “Drinking Fountains: U.S. Access Board Technical Guide,” April 2020, pp. 1–5; Health and Safety Executive (HSE), “Workplace health, safety and welfare: A short guide for managers,” United Kingdom.

³ Zhang, J., Zhang, N., He, H., Du, S. and Ma, G., “Different Amounts of Water Supplementation Improved Cognitive Performance and Mood among Young Adults after 12 h Water Restriction in Baoding, China: A Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT),” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 17, no. 21, 2020, 7792.