LEGO announces more than US$400M to expand its Ciénega de Flores plant: 35% more capacity and 1,300 jobs

On September 24, 2026, The LEGO Group announced a new phase of expansion at the plant it has operated since 2008 in Ciénega de Flores, a municipality north of Monterrey in the Mexican state of Nuevo León. It consists of a packing hall and a fully automated high bay warehouse that together add 62,000 square meters of built-up area and represent an investment of more than US$400 million.

The company expects work to begin in early 2027 and to be completed by 2029. When it is done, the site will go from 148,080 to 210,080 square meters of built-up area on the same 87 hectares, with production capacity 35% higher by the company's own account, and 1,300 new jobs on top of the roughly 7,300 people it employs today.

The announcement was made that same day at the Mexican President's morning press conference, with Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard and Nancy Sánchez Moya, an executive of The LEGO Group.

This is an announcement. Construction has not started, and the figure is an investment commitment, not capital already deployed.

More than US$400 million covers both buildings, not one each

In the hours after the announcement, two readings circulated that the company's own release does not support. Both change the size of the story, so they are worth pinning down.

The first is the amount. The more than US$400 million is not the budget for one building. It covers both, the packing hall and the automated warehouse. That is how the company's own executive put it that day, speaking in Spanish at the press conference:

"This investment of 8.6 billion pesos, or 400 million dollars [...] will consist of a new packing building and a high-capacity automated warehouse," said Nancy Sánchez Moya.

The second is the schedule. September 30, 2026 circulated as the date construction would begin. LEGO's release puts work on the new production areas in early 2027, finishing in 2029.

One more precision, small and consequential for anyone planning around it. The company says the 1,300 jobs are expected to be created "over the course of this latest expansion," not that all of them will exist by 2029.

It grows inward: 62,000 square meters on the same 87 hectares

This is not a new plant. It is the expansion of a site that opened in 2008 and is growing on land it already holds. The 87 hectares do not change; what changes is how much of that land is built on.

"The LEGO Group has steadily expanded its Monterrey factory since its opening in 2008," said Carsten Rasmussen, the group's Chief Operating Officer.

In its releases the company calls the site "Monterrey," which is the name of the metropolitan area. The municipality where the plant actually sits is Ciénega de Flores, in the state's northern corridor, on the axis toward the Texas border.

That phased growth is precisely why the figures in this announcement cannot be chained to earlier ones. In this same release LEGO acknowledges a previous expansion, announced in 2023 and completed earlier this year, which added 59,000 square meters and 900 colleagues to the site. Those are separate packages, with separate construction and separate timelines. Amounts from different phases do not add up, and anyone who adds them lands on a number the company never stated.

What is being expanded is not molding, it is everything downstream of it

The announcement does not describe more injection lines. It describes a packing hall and a fully automated high bay warehouse, meaning the part of the factory that happens once the brick already exists: packing, palletizing, storing and shipping. The company attributes a 35% increase in the site's production capacity to that expansion.

For a supplier, that distinction decides whether the work is theirs. A high bay automated warehouse is typically built out of structure and racking, stacker cranes, conveyors, electrical controls, warehouse management software, fire protection, and civil works with high-strength slabs held to tight flatness. It draws on metalworking, industrial automation and specialized construction far more than on injection molding.

It is the kind of investment a plant makes when installed capacity has to turn into shipped product.

What moves in Ciénega de Flores between 2027 and 2029

Two things, in that order. First, 62,000 square meters of industrial construction in the northern corridor, with work expected to start in early 2027. Then, hiring of 1,300 people over the course of the expansion, at a plant where the same company already employs around 7,300.

That second figure is worth keeping in view if you are sizing a hire in the same labor market. It is not an obstacle, it is a planning input.

Ciénega de Flores has spent years accumulating manufacturing that needs generous industrial land and a fast run to the border. In August of this year, in that same municipality, Bosch opened its air conditioning plant with US$300 million and more than 900 jobs.

If your company is in this chain

• Explore the map of industrial parks in Nuevo León, with availability by municipality.
• Review options for industrial buildings, land and build-to-suit.
• Learn about the state's strategic clusters and how to join their supply chains.

Sources: The LEGO Group, The LEGO Group announces next phase of growth for Monterrey, Mexico manufacturing site (September 24, 2026) · Office of the President of Mexico, Stenographic version, press conference of President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, September 24, 2026 · Mexican Ministry of Economy, Remarks by Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard at the morning press conference (September 24, 2026) · The LEGO Group, release on the Monterrey factory (August 2022), whose fact sheet places the site in Ciénega de Flores.