Jaguar Park's south entrance could get a 158-space car park under solar roofs

A state company linked to Mexico's Defense Ministry has asked federal environmental authorities to approve a 158-space car park at the south entrance of Tulum's Jaguar Park. Sixty-eight of the spaces would sit under solar roofs and five would be bays for buses. The plan is under review by Semarnat, and nothing can be built until it is approved.

For anyone who has tried to drive to a beach inside the park, the filing goes to a practical gap: a public place to leave the car.

What has been filed

The request was submitted as an environmental impact statement, a Manifestación de Impacto Ambiental, to the Dirección General de Impacto y Riesgo Ambiental of Semarnat, Mexico's environment ministry, and registered in the ministry's Gaceta Ecológica, Quintana Roo Hoy reported on November 8. The promoter is Grupo Mundo Maya, a company linked to the Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional whose formal name is Grupo Aeroportuario, Ferroviario, de Servicios Auxiliares y Conexos Olmeca-Maya-Mexica. According to the filing as reported, the car park would support the park's operations and is not a separate real estate development.

The layout is specific. Of the 158 spaces, 78 would be ordinary uncovered spaces, 68 would be covered by photovoltaic structures, seven would be reserved for people with reduced mobility and five would take buses. Reportur, which reported on the impact statement on November 9, places the site beside the south entrance, near Avenida Cobá and the road to Boca Paila, and counts 300 solar panels across the covered rows. By Reportur's reading the site is about one hectare: 8,665 square meters for the car park and its circulation, and 1,335 square meters of green areas and planters, with entrances and exits, pedestrian paths, ramps, lighting and security cameras.

The idea is to concentrate arrivals. Private cars and tour buses would stop at the south entrance, and visitors would carry on into the park on foot or by internal transport.

Cost and timing

The filing puts the preliminary investment at 44,890,461 pesos, plus a reserve of 3.5 million pesos for closing out the project, for a total of about 48.4 million pesos at 2026 values. Quintana Roo Hoy notes these are planning estimates rather than a signed construction contract. The works are scheduled to take about two and a half months, 15 days of site preparation and two months of building, and the car park is designed to operate for 50 years. No start date has been given, and work cannot begin until Semarnat authorizes it.

How it works today

When Uno TV visited in July, park staff said there was no public car park inside the protected area and one had not yet been built, and a driver who wanted to take a car to the beach needed a reservation, made online, with one of the hotels or beach clubs inside the park.

What the filing does not settle

The site is not empty ground. According to Reportur's reading of the impact statement, 99.2 percent of the proposed land lies in a preservation subzone of the Parque Nacional Tulum. The statement itself lists the expected effects: loss of vegetation cover, displacement of wildlife, fragmentation of habitat, effects on species protected under the Mexican standard NOM-059-Semarnat-2010, compaction of the soil and changes to how rainwater soaks in and runs off. Those are the points Semarnat will weigh before it rules.

Nor does the filing say what parking will cost, who will collect it, or whether it will need a reservation. Those are the details a visitor will want, and they have not been published.

For more on the park, see how Tulum's ruins tickets moved to the Jaguar Park entrances and the free beach access points inside the park.

Sources: Quintana Roo Hoy, "Proyectan estacionamiento de 48.4 mdp en Tulum," November 8, 2026; Reportur, "Parque del Jaguar tendrá en zona de preservación 158 parqueaderos," November 9, 2026; Uno TV, on parking and access at the Jaguar Park beaches, July 23, 2026.