Dufry in Azcapotzalco: Why Would a Multinational Choose Offices in Such a High-Vacancy Area?
- High office vacancy rates don’t prevent a location from offering business advantages. Dufry’s decision to locate in Azcapotzalco demonstrates this.
After evaluating up to 15 options in Mexico City, Dufry, a duty-free retail chain owned by Avolta, leased 2,350 square meters of Class A office space in a submarket with more than one-third of space vacancy. In making its selection, the company examined not only the properties themselves but also the characteristics of nearby residents it could potentially hire.
The four-year lease covers space in Tower E at Tecnoparque in Azcapotzalco, where the company established a business services center to support its Latin American operations. The agreed rent was 8% below the average for the North submarket, where the property is located.
The transaction stands out for Avolta’s selection process—which involved evaluating four or five Latin American countries before choosing Mexico for its talent, costs, and geographic location—and for conditions in the North submarket, where the high office vacancy rate (36.6%) is more than double the Mexico City average and has remained virtually unchanged since late 2025.
SiiLA data indicate that office demand in the area has been insufficient to reduce available space, even though virtually no new inventory has been added over the past two years. The third quarter of 2026 illustrates this situation: Dufry and other companies occupied more than 6,500 square meters, but Alorica’s departure from Tower C at Tecnoparque, which alone vacated more than 6,700 square meters, offset those transactions and pushed net absorption into negative territory.
This helps explain why vacancy remains high even as new tenants arrive, forcing landlords to compete for demand that is insufficient to fill existing space. In this environment, companies such as Dufry may have greater leverage to negotiate lease terms, although the final rental rate also depends on each property’s characteristics.
What Vacancy Rates Cannot Explain
In the coming months, following the announcement of long-term contract extensions for its commercial operations at the Guadalajara, Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos and Bajío airports, Avolta plans to hire more than 60 specialized employees for its new business services center. These employees will provide financial and operational support for the group’s Latin American businesses, as well as drive process standardization and digital transformation.
Avolta’s decision thus reveals a limitation of real estate indicators. Although they can measure an area’s difficulty filling its buildings, they cannot, on their own, explain the operational advantages the same location may offer certain companies. Consequently, relatively weak activity in a real estate market does not necessarily mean that the location itself has lost its appeal.
No new office inventory is expected to be added in the North submarket by the end of 2026. Under these conditions, and assuming no major vacancies like Alorica’s third-quarter departure, trends over the past four quarters suggest the vacancy rate could remain around 36%, potentially edging lower.
This is not the most favorable outlook among Mexico City’s office markets. However, Dufry’s arrival and Alorica’s departure show that, in the North submarket, a few companies’ decisions can reverse an entire quarter’s occupancy gains. Its performance therefore depends not only on conditions that attract new tenants but also on those that encourage existing tenants to stay.
Want more data and insights on Mexico City’s office markets and submarkets? Visit SiiLA Market Analytics or email us at contacto@siila.com.mx.
