MISSION, Texas - If some of the bigger cities in the Rio Grande Valley do not have enough land to house a major industrial complex, some of their rural neighbors can step in and help.
This is the view of Rick Carrera, economic development director of the Council for South Texas Economic Progress.
“Okay, maybe some of the bigger cities are landlocked. A lot of our smaller cities have property available, and they're still within the vicinity of the larger city,” Carrera said.
Carrera made his comments on NewsTalk 710 KURV’s morning show. He and his boss, COSTEP CEO Adam Gonzalez, were invited onto the show after the radio station read an exclusive news story in Rio Grande Guardian International News Service.
The headline of the Guardian news story read: “COSTEP is close to landing two big manufacturing projects for South Texas.” It was based on an exclusive interview with Gonzalez.
Gonzalez told the Guardian that one of the manufacturing firms was in the food industry and other in the aerospace industry. Gonzalez said one would make a $50 million investment and the other would make an investment anywhere between half a billion dollars and $1.5 billion.
In his interview on KURV, Carrera confirmed the accuracy of the Guardian story but said he could not divulge too much information.
“One would be an incredible job creator. The other would be a job creator in addition to having something that is probably not seen here in the area as often as one would think. So it's kind of running along those lines,” Carrera said.
“We don't want to divulge too much information, we really can't at this point. But they both look promising. I've been working with both these groups for probably a couple of months now and Adam and myself have hosted both these groups for a quick tour, as they call it. We kind of gave them a tour of the area.”
KURV presenter Sergio Sanchez asked Carrera if, with all the near-shoring going on, COSTEP’s phones were “ringing off the hook.”
Carrera responded: “I wouldn't say it's ringing off the hook, but we have been reached out to. That is kind of the buzz word right now, near-shoring. Near-shoring, re-shoring, that kind of thing. It's not something that we're not familiar with. We pursue those opportunities as best as we possibly can, only because we feel like we're in a really, really good spot to take advantage.”
Sanchez then asked, “How do we grease the skids? How do we make things easier? To make it happen? Because I hear some folks complaining, well, McAllen is landlocked and doesn’t have too much land to develop. And we need more warehousing as well in order for industry to arrive and get busy. What would you do, Rick, to make things easier?”
Carrera responded: “So that's kind of an advantage that we have at COSTEP because we're not representing one particular entity. We’re not representing one city, one county, we're representing an entire region. As a region we can take on those projects.”
Carrera continued: “What I kind of foresee or I can envision happening is maybe one of our smaller communities in one of the four counties of the Rio Grande Valley or, maybe, Laredo, whatever, having the property to be able to house a large industrial complex, a large manufacturing facility, and then you get everybody commuting to that area. Commutes of 30 minutes and that kind of thing are not uncommon, even in the Rio Grande Valley.”
Sanchez agreed.
“I guess where I am going with that is, you have the property that's available, maybe it's not in some of the urban areas, maybe it's somewhere in the rural areas,” Carrera said. “That’s where I kind of come in and say, look, we've got property available here in the area. Maybe you can't locate all your operations in one city, but you can put your manufacturing in one part (of the Valley) where the property is available, and maybe go to another city…”
Sanchez said he hopes the Valley can “stay straight up on foot and not stumble over ourselves in order to get the job done.”
Sanchez’s co-presenter, Tim Sullivan asked if the Valley needs more rail lines to handle freight movements.
“Definitely rail is big,” Gonzalez responded. “As you well know… in the Laredo part of the region we have Kansas City Southern that now runs all the way to Canada, all the way to Mexico. We do need more rail infrastructure in the Valley, I think.”
Carrera said he sat in on a discussion yesterday with a local switching company. He said the Weslaco Economic Development Corporation was kind enough to invite him. He said the meeting was really informative.
“There's good infrastructure here, but I think across the country, everybody could use more rail,” Carrera said.
