Coco Beach

The Beach

Coco Beach, located just at the north end of downtown Playa del Carmen is a fine example of Playa del Carmen’s beautiful soft, white beaches, with the bright turquoise water beyond.  The beach is wide, and there is plenty of tropical vegetation along this stretch of beachfront.  There are also nice hotels with thatched-roof “palapas” giving Coco Beach a nice balance between an upscale, trendy community and the natural beauty of Playa del Carmen’s beachfront.

 

Community Style

Coco Beach is a brand new community , emerging as the hippest place to be in Playa del Carmen.  It is nestled between Fifth Avenue (the main street and shopping area downtown) and the beach.  It has developed as an upscale area since the beginning, and so the whole community has a very nice and exclusive atmosphere.  Here, there are no half-constructed homes or laundry hanging next to the sidewalk – it’s only the best of architecture and design, and neighbors who, like you, have a taste for style and living well.  There are also a number of restaurants, and activities like jet-ski rental on the beachfront.

 

Fifth Avenue

Fifth Avenue is Playa del Carmen’s main downtown street; it is closed off to traffic form most of its length and has lots of shops, boutiques, restaurants, bars, cafes, art galleries and much more.  While the happening part of Fifth Avenue started off as a tiny stretch at the ferry dock to Cozumel, about a mile south.  With tourism and real estate booming in Playa del Carmen, the activity on the street has grown rapidly northward; the stretch closest to the Coco Beach community is actually the nicest and trendiest part, recently seeing a number of international cafes, boutiques and restaurants (including an Italian pizza shop) open up.

 

Downtown

Walking south along Fifth Avenue – picturesque, pleasant and full of things to do along the whole way – you come to the heart of downtown.  Here, in addition to all the amenities of Fifth Avenue, there are local taco shops, supermarkets, local fish and fruit markets, banks, nice shopping plazas and much more.  Coco Beach is the ideal balance between being close to everything downtown, while still being an exclusive, upscale community.

 

Bike Lifestyle

While most of Fifth Avenue is within comfortable walking distance, some of the more distant parts of downtown are easier to arrive to on bike.  The good thing is that Coco Beach itself and most of the downtown streets are small and calm enough to all for easy and comfortable bike riding everywhere – not to mention to the beach.  Also, there are no hills …

 

The New Center

Up until now, Coco Beach has generally been seen as the “end of everything” as far as the tourism activity downtown goes.  But this is changing.  As of the end of 2011, a new luxury hotel and resort complex opened up about a mile north of Coco Beach.  A nice, new access road is also being built from the federal highway to the beach. As this hotel gains more popularity and more growth takes place in the area to the north, Coco Beach will very quickly become the middle of everything in the downtown area.  This promises more restaurants and more activities; it also suggests a possibility of rising property values.