Foster+Partners and Fernando Romero Enterprise (FR-EE)-designed partly built Mexico City Airport has been cancelled, following a controversial four-day (25-28 October) public informal referendum, which was launched by President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador in August.

The four-day referandum was held to determine whether the construction of Mexico City airport would continue or not, even though the construction has been ongoing at the site since 2015. One-third of the $13.3 billion project has already been built at site and it was expected to open to the public in 2020. 

Lopez Obrador had promised to cancel the project during his campaign, claiming that the New Mexico City International Airport (NAICM) was mismanaged and exposed to an excessive and wasteful spending.

In the public voting process, an advisory council asked its citizens this question: "Given the saturation at the Mexico City International Airport which option do you think is better for the country?", and there were two options to select, according to Mexico Daily News: 

(a) Recondition the existing airport and that in Toluca and build two runways at the Santa Lucía Air Force Base; 

(b) Continue with the construction of the new airport in Texcoco and discontinue using the existing Mexico City International Airport."

Image © Dbox

Approximately 1 million people voted for the Mexico City International Airport (Mexico's population is roughly 131 million), and 311,132 participants voted for the Texcoco option and 748,335 voted for the refurbishment of the existing airport. 

"The decision taken by the citizens is democratic, rational and efficient," Lopez Obrador said, according to the Washington Post. "The people decided."

Lopez Obrador said that Mexicans "will save about $5 billion by abandoning the unfinished Texcoco project. But most importantly, he said that the decision means "corruption has ended."

Obrador also added that he hoped that the unfinished site could be used to create "a big sports and ecological center for Mexico City."

Image © Dbox

After the referandum, so far no official announcement has been made by Foster+Partners and Fernando Romero Enterprise (FR-EE). But Fernando Romero, the founder of FR-EE, shared a tweet written by Juan Pablo Castañon, President of the Business Coordinating Council and it reads that:

"We recognize the citizens who expressed their opinion in the consultation on the airport. However, we reiterate our position that this consultation, as it was organized, should not be binding and did not offer guarantees of impartiality, certainty and objectivity. (1/2)."

Mr. López Obrador also salted that the bonds are secured by airport taxes. "There’s no problem, there’s enough money to back up those bonds," he said.

According to the public vote, the refurbishment of the existing Toluca Airport will be reactivated. However, it is still unclear that how flights will be connected in any reasonable amount of time between the current airport, the planned Santa Lucia terminal and the satellite airport in the nearby city of Toluca.

Proposal for the renovation of the Santa Lucia terminal. Image © Grupo Riobó

60 per cent of of it was being funded by the Mexican government and the remaining 40 per cent would be planned to made up from bank loans and debt security.

Foster+Partners and Fernando Romero Enterprise (FR-EE) won an international competition in 2014 to design Mexico City's new international airport, which is the largest infrastructure development of Latin America and the world's most sustainable airport in Mexico City. 

Encompassing a total of 667,000 square-meters area in the city, the new terminal is aimed to be the new icon of Mexico city with its "never-before-seen" form, monumentality and high-level performance. 

All images courtesy of FR-EE, unless otherwise stated.

> via The Washington Post