A vacant 1,042-acre township on the northeast end of El Paso is again at stake as a potential location for a giant manufacturer.
More than a decade ago, the city acquired land from the El Paso Board of Public Utilities and set aside it as an imaginable site for an automaker, but nothing materialized and the land vanished into the background.
However, the city’s Planning Commission on Thursday unanimously approved the city’s request to replace the zoning of heavy manufacturing agricultural assets despite an objection from El Paso’s largest genuine residential real estate developer with a nearby residential development.
The Planning Commission’s advice will go to the El Paso City Council, which has the final say on the zoning changes.
“These assets are very exciting assets for a long-term tenant (business) and (we are) in talks and looking at various state clues for these assets,” said Sam Rodriguez, the city’s director of operations and transportation and city engineer. .
The vast expanse of desert land is located along a little-used portion of Stan Roberts Sr. Avenue, and just off Highway 54, not far from the New Mexico state border, El Paso Electric’s Newman Power Plant is below Stan Roberts, approximately 8 kilometers from the country’s western boundary. near U. S. Highway 54. USA
Rodriguez said the city has no corporations for the site.
“We need to make sure we have a tenant before proceeding with any formal assignment to make a larger rail line to the site, which is a ‘very expensive investment that would be needed’ for business development,” he said. in talks with Union Pacific Railroad about an extension of the railroad line from Dyer Street.
However, Philip Etiwe, director of the city’s inspection and planning department, hinted that city officials knew the “end user” of the property.
“We think we know, but it’s not yet unusual knowledge,” he said. “We are just looking to prepare this shovel. “
In an email after the meeting, Rodriguez said site experts and corporations said the city tweed the land to make it more exciting “when looking for a business. “
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A city concept plan for the site includes several production buildings, water retention ponds, a water recycling plant and buildings; however, whoever is there, it would be appropriate to propose a detailed progression plan for the site and approve it through the Planning Commission. City officials said.
Bob Cook, an El Paso-based variety trade representative and former director of the former El Paso Regional Economic Development Corporation, or REDCo. , helped more than a decade ago market the Northeast domain as a prospect for an auto production plant.
He was instrumental in the city’s 2009 acquisition of the land from the El Paso Board of Utilities, which oversees El Paso Water, the city’s owned water company.
It has been rated through McCallum Sweeney Consulting, a now-closed South Carolina auto industry consulting firm, as Array Cook said.
“Two other companies, one in the auto sector and one in the electrical sector, looked at the site” years ago, but nothing ever materialized, Cook said.
“The rezoning had to be done. It’s a city-wide initiative,” because it reduces the progression procedure by several months if a company needs to set up a facility there, Cook said.
“This site would be a smart candidate” for corporations to locate battery factories for electric vehicles, Cook said.
“I’m aware of several large battery (manufacturing) projects looking for sites across the United States,” said Cook, senior vice president of Site Selection Group, a Dallas-based site variety consulting firm. not aware of any corporation that El Paso is a battery factory site.
In the spring, published reports indicated that Pegatron Corp. , a Taiwanese manufacturer of electronics, had selected El Paso to open a tesla electric vehicle parts production plant. However, Pegatron officials, in a statement sent to the El Paso Times in early May, said the company had not made a decision on its plans abroad. Nothing new has been reported about the company’s plans.
An El Paso plant can simply get a Tesla car plant under structure in the Austin area, about six hundred miles east of El Paso.
Ford Motor Co. and Korean company SK Innovations are for a battery factory site in the United States for their new joint venture, BlueOvalSK. Published reports have indicated that Ohio and Texas are spaces where the joint venture is for sites.
Asked in an email if Pegatron, BlueOvalSK or other corporations have expressed interest in the site, Rodriguez said in an email, “There is no data that we can percentage at this time. “
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El Paso real estate agent Juan Uribe, a member of the City Plan Commission, said at the Sept. 9 assembly that northeast El Paso is not a hot domain for production plants “because it’s too far from (international) bridges and Interstate 10. “it would be more used for residential development, he said.
Planning Commission Chairman Chris Cummings and former deputy urban planner Carlos Gallinar said El Paso wants other commercial sites and that this one is suitable for such a development.
Douglas Schwartz, general manager of Southwest Land Development Services Inc. , the city’s largest developer of genuine residential properties, told the Planning Commission that he opposes rezoning because the city “puts zoning before oxen, as it has known users” of the land.
Part of its North View progression is within three hundred feet of the proposed plant site. The presence of heavy production nearby would hurt progression and owners in the long run, he said in an Aug. 10 email to the plan-making department.
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Pricilla Hernandez, senior vice president of Classic American Homes, in an Aug. 11 letter to the planmaking department, said her company opposes the production proposal because of possible damage to its plan to build homes in Vista del Norte. at the meeting.
Vic Kolenc can be reached at 546-6421; vkolenc@elpasotimes. com; @vickolenc on Twitter.