Occupying a significant portion of the Río de la Plata riverbank, it is the site for several high-rise buildings and luxurious hotels, featuring the latest architectural trends.

[3] From its inception, the city of Buenos Aires had a problem accommodating large cargo ships, as per Puerto La Boca, because the shallow river did not allow for direct docking.

Though these continued to serve in ancillary port functions, the zone gradually decayed, becoming one of the city's most degraded areas, a mixture of warehouses and large tracts of undeveloped land.

The 170 hectares of the place had overlapping jurisdictions: the General Administration of Ports, Argentine railroads and the "Junta Nacional de Granos" (National Grain Board) had interests in the zone.

In the 1990s, local and foreign investment led to a massive regeneration effort, recycling and refurbishing the west side warehouses into elegant houses, offices, lofts, private universities, luxurious hotels and restaurants that conform to a gallery of options for this new district in a city that grew up turning its back to the river.

Led by the 1999 opening of the Hilton Buenos Aires, luxurious hotels, state-of-the-art multiplex cinemas, theatres, cultural centres, and office and corporate buildings are located mostly in the east side.

Puerto Madero has been redeveloped with international flair, drawing interest from businessmen, architects and designers such as Santiago Calatrava, Norman Foster, César Pelli, Alan Faena, Philippe Starck, among others.

The 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) Tranvía del Este, inaugurated in 2007 and closed in 2012, served the area running parallel to Alicia Moreau de Justo Avenue, along the barrio's western side.

[7][8] All the other proposals have also been criticised: the elevated and ground level options because they would constitute a barrier between Puerto Madero and the rest of the city, and the underground scheme because of the cost and negative impact during construction.