The San Diego –Tijuana Airport Cross-Border Facility

By Adina Moloman

Source: Otay Mesa Chamber of Commerce, UT San Diego

Residents from California and the Baja California region move back and forth across the border to work, live, shop and recreate.

The San Diego –Tijuana Airport Cross-Border Facility is a pedestrian bridge project, 525-foot long, which is planning to link the Tijuana airport to a foot terminal in Otay Mesa, San Diego. Its main use is for the Tijuana Airline-ticketed passengers heading to the US, they will use the bridge in order to avoid often-congested border crossings and for security purposes. The border crossings will reduce the economic impact of delays, both for Baja California and California as well.

The private bi-national ownership group for this project is the Otay–Tijuana Venture LLC.

The cross border facility still has a significant number of steps and approvals from both sides of the border, but little steps are being taking.

On the US side the bi-national ownership group is negotiating with U.S. Customs and Border Protection over issues that include who would pay the salaries of federal officers assigned to the facility.

The airport expansion team handled some difficulties on the Mexican side due to the Tijuana municipality’s request to GAP Group[1] a Mexico Corporation, to pay municipal property taxes. According to Tijuana administration this project is subject to property taxes or to city licensing and permits. Tijuana airport being a federal property in Mexico, the GAP in Tijuana is only seeking federal permits from Mexico’s Communications and Transportation Secretariat.

The group has recently planning the development of the next phase of this development on the Mexican side, which includes the submission of the final construction plans to federal government’s approval in the first semester of 2013. The group will need to work for one year and a half to complete the construction.