Merced

About Merced:

Merced covers about 2.2 square kilometres at 1,154 metres, all of it inside the city of San José. The Torres river and the canton of Tibás mark its northern edge, with La Uruca to the north-west, Mata Redonda to the west, Carmen to the east and Hospital to the south. Together with Carmen, Hospital and Catedral it forms the four central districts of the original city. National routes 1 and 108 cross it, and the Coca-Cola terminal on Avenida 3 sends long-distance buses to much of the country. Downtown’s banks, ministries and pedestrian avenues are a walk away, which is the district’s strongest argument for anyone who would rather not depend on a car.

Much of the working day here happens behind a market stall or a bank counter. The Mercado Central, open since 1880, fills an entire block with more than 200 stalls, shops and sodas, and the Mercado Borbón two blocks north deals mostly in produce, meat and fish. The Banco Nacional and the Banco Central keep their head offices in the district, the Instituto Nacional de Seguros has its La Merced headquarters here, and the Correos y Telégrafos building stands here too. Further north, the Defensoría de los Habitantes and Infocoop work out of Barrio México, where the Liceo de San José and the Escuela República Argentina serve the families who live around them. The old central penitentiary reopened in 1994 as the Museo de los Niños.

The barrios north of the markets filled up after the 1910 Cartago earthquake, when working families came to the capital looking for somewhere cheap and close to the centre. The place they settled, then called Rincón de Cubillo, was renamed Barrio México in 1923 in honour of provincial governor José Luján Mata and his Mexican ancestry. It still has more Art Deco buildings than any other part of San José, the old Botica Solera and the Cine Líbano among them, along with a few wooden houses from the first decades of the century. Iglesias Flores, in a hollow beside the Torres, began in 1926 as 100 wooden houses sold on monthly instalments, one of the country’s first social-housing schemes. Green space is scarce: the park in Barrio México, once the Plaza Nicolás Marín where generations of footballers started out, and Parque Salvador are the main open spaces.

Merced peaked at about 22,000 residents in 1963 and then lost people for half a century as the old centre emptied out, falling to 12,257 by 2011. It has since climbed back to roughly 15,800, and the municipality has made bringing residents back to the four central districts an explicit goal. More than a quarter of the people living here in 2011 were born abroad, most of them in Nicaragua, with smaller groups from Colombia and the Dominican Republic. The property market follows that mix: families who have owned in the barrio for generations, small investors looking for rental income or a ground-floor business, and tenants who work in the markets, banks and nearby hospitals and want to walk to the job.

Houses in Merced:

Houses make up most of the stock: one- and two-storey homes on narrow lots in Barrio México, Claret, Pitahaya and Iglesias Flores. Many are decades old, some built in wood or behind an Art Deco front, and a lot of them have been extended over the years or split to make room for a rental unit or a shop at street level. Larger plots do turn up, such as a flat Barrio México lot of more than 700 square metres with an old wooden house on it, offered under mixed-use zoning. When you compare houses for sale in Merced, look at the roof, wiring and plumbing as closely as the asking price, and confirm whether the property counts as residential or mixed use.

Apartments in Merced:

Merced’s apartments come in two very different forms. Most are units inside or behind older houses, or in small low-rise buildings, and they change hands as rentals far more often than as sales. The exception is Torres Paseo Colón on Avenida Primera in Pitahaya: two 29-storey residential towers with one-, two- and three-bedroom units and penthouses ranging from about 45 to more than 220 square metres. Residents share a semi-Olympic pool, a gym, a cinema room and a rooftop terrace on the top floor, and La Sabana park is a short walk west. Units there are both sold and let long term, which makes the towers the obvious choice in this district for condos in San José with round-the-clock security and underground parking.

Rentals in Merced:

For a district this size, Merced has a wide spread of rentals: two-bedroom apartments with a garage in Barrio México, single rooms in shared houses, small commercial units and whole family houses. Tenants tend to be people who work downtown, families who have rented in the barrio for years and newcomers to the city who want the bus terminals close by. Before signing, ask whether the unit has its own water and electricity meters, whether there is anywhere to park, and how the street feels after the shops close.

Commercial Property and Warehouses in Merced:

Trade is the oldest business in the district, and commercial property is spread across it: shopfronts around the markets, ground-floor premises in Barrio México and older warehouses, many of them without parking. Some of the industrial areas that once operated in Merced have shrunk or closed, and the municipality’s plans for the central districts favour bringing people back to live there, so a warehouse or a large old lot can also be read as a redevelopment site. Before buying, confirm the land use and the permitted height for that exact address under the San José Plan Director Urbano, and check whether loading and unloading are allowed on the street outside.

FAQ:

• Which barrios are part of Merced?

  Merced takes in Bajos de la Unión, Claret, Coca Cola, Iglesias Flores, Mántica, Merced centre, Barrio México, Paso de la Vaca, Pitahaya and Rincón de Cubillos. The markets and the Coca-Cola terminal sit in the southern part, Pitahaya runs along the Paseo Colón side to the west, and Barrio México, Claret and Iglesias Flores make up the residential north towards the Torres river.

• What should I check before buying an older house in Barrio México or Iglesias Flores?

  Many of these houses have been extended, divided or rebuilt piece by piece over several decades, so the first job is to compare what stands on the lot with the cadastral plan and the property’s record at the Registro Nacional (Registro Inmobiliario). Wooden houses and old Art Deco fronts need a structural look before you commit, not after. In Iglesias Flores and on other lots that drop towards the Torres, find out how close the land runs to the river and whether part of it falls inside the protected strip along the bank. If you plan to keep or open a business on the ground floor, confirm the land use with the Municipalidad de San José as well.

• What is it like near the markets and the Coca-Cola terminal?

  These are the busiest blocks in the district, with heavy foot traffic, buses and street trade from early morning, and they carry a reputation for petty theft once the shops close. A few blocks north, in Barrio México or Claret, the streets are mainly residential and far quieter. Visit the exact block at different times of day, including after dark, before you decide.

• Can I live in Merced without a car?

  More easily than in most of San José. The Mercado Central, the Borbón, the banks and downtown’s pedestrian avenues are within walking distance, the hospitals in neighbouring Hospital district are close, and the Coca-Cola terminal covers trips out of the city. Many older houses have no garage at all, so if you do keep a car, sort out parking before anything else.

• Is the Iglesia de La Merced in Merced district?

  No. The church that gave the district its name stood on the site of today’s Banco Central and was destroyed by an earthquake in 1888. Its replacement, the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de La Merced, opened in 1894 a few blocks south, inside Hospital district, so an address given as “by La Merced church” may well be in Hospital rather than Merced.