Fundidora - a factory that was able to become a park!

We continue to get acquainted with curious places of the city and introduce them to you :) Today we are going to walk around a place that has very few analogs in the world. 

Officially, the 120 hectares of former steel mill land became a park in 1988 and was named Fundidora in honor of the founding company (Fundidora de Fierro y Acero de Monterrey), which can be loosely translated as "the park located on the territory of the steel mill". 

For convenience, I am dividing the story into two parts (they are both in this article) - the park's past and present. Enjoy your trip!

The Past

Let's go back to the beginning of the 20th century. May 1900, four businessmen (Vicente Ferrara, Leon Signore, Eugenio Kelly and Antonio Basagoiti) were among the first to see the potential of the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon as a high-end steel producer and founded a company with the long name Fundidora de Fierro y Acero de Monterrey, SA. 

For the first time in Latin America's history, a blast furnace was installed in the production center - and the process began. 

At the peak of its capacity, the plant produced up to 100,000 tons of steel per year, at which point it was recognized as federal property.

After that, the plant operated without a single interruption for 15 years, but the steel market did not stand still, competitors appeared, and eventually the plant was recognized as financially insolvent and later declared a bankruptcy. At the same time, shortly before the closure, the plant had reached the target of one million tons of steel per year, but even this was not enough for successful continuation of operations.

Almost immediately after the bankruptcy, the territory of the factory (120 hectares!) began to be adapted into a city park. By permission of the President of Mexico personally, the Fundidora Trust was established to turn what was left of a hundred years of continuous (and contentedly dirty - in terms of impact on nature) operation into a place of attraction for residents and visitors of the state of Nuevo León. 

According to a rather ambitious plan, the future park was to combine seven directions: entertainment, ecological, leisure, cultural, business, educational and sports. 

The Present

Taking a time jump to the year 2022. Fundidora Park has been welcoming visitors every day, from 6am to 10pm, for almost 35 years. 

Entrance to the main part is free and free of charge, and there are also seasonal, temporary and permanent paid attractions: exhibitions, cinema, fairs, museum and more.

There are several ways to get around Fundidora (which is now 150 hectares). First, of course, by foot (here I think everything is clear), but there are also such options:

• Bicycle - two-wheelers for adults and teens, and brightly colored three-wheelers for kids.

• Golf Car. You can either rent one completely for yourself and drive wherever you want (350 pesos per hour, $20 USD) or join a regular route as part of a group (90 pesos per trip, $5 USD).
• You can also ride in the pond on a catamaran (here we did not get to the prices) or swim on the river streetcar on the water channel (by the way, artificial) - it is 100 pesos per person ($5 USD).

We opted for a leisurely hike and it was beautiful! The park is huge, very green, you can see mountains from everywhere, lots of fountains and shade trees where you can hide from the sun. There are areas with exercise machines (quite modern), restrooms and drinking fountains.

As we understood, it is customary to come here with your own food and have picnics, because the choice of food and drinks in the park itself is rather poor (sweet sodas, chips, walking dogs, cotton candy, caramel apples). For picnics there are special places with tables and benches (fire is not allowed), you can also sit anywhere you like on the grass or by the pond. There are no grocery stores or restaurants, only a few small cafes.

In addition to people there are a lot of birds walking around the park, they walk quite calmly - you can see that they feel comfortable here, they are used to people and no one is threatening them here :) we didn't try to pet them, we admired them from a distance. But squirrels are very fast - you can't catch them if you want to, it was difficult to follow their movements even with your eyes.

In the park every weekend (I suspect weekdays too), there are various activities going on. For example, on the day we visited, there were:

• LEGO charity event
• Market of goods from local producers
• In the evenings there are pre-Christmas festivities (there is a large area for them, maybe we will visit it closer to the New Year).
• In the Expo Center there was a beauty contest among girls, and soon there will be a key-pop convention.

And that's just what we were able to google quickly :) 

In general, you can't go around the whole park in one day - we didn't even try, we enjoyed our walk, contemplated the nature, the slot machines, and looked for places for the next visits.

Thanks for walking with us :) I will be glad if you find my experience useful or interesting ❤