RIOPLEX -
We spend a lot of time talking about the future of our region. Have we stopped to consider that it may already be taking shape around us?
100 years ago, a man named Uriah Lott was a railroad promoter trying to connect South Texas at a scale many dismissed as unrealistic and unworthy of investment. Lott saw something different: connecting the region’s distant communities would make each of them more valuable as part of a larger system.
We now know that when the railroad reached Brownsville in 1904, it connected land, agriculture, commerce and emerging towns in ways no single project could have accomplished alone.
Today, the pieces look different, and their scale is becoming difficult to ignore:
At the Port of Brownsville, Rio Grande LNG represents a $36 billion capital investment, while Saronic has selected the port for a planned $3.2 billion next-generation shipyard. The Anzalduas International Bridge is undergoing an expansion of more than $80 million to support commercial cargo, while a $62 million project would expand the Donna International Bridge into another commercial crossing. Mission has broken ground on a $50 million aluminum recycling and manufacturing facility, and Valeo is investing $225 million in a high-tech automotive plant in McAllen expected to create up to 500 jobs.
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