Brownsville officials consider options to develop next to Sports Park

The Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation is taking the first steps toward figuring out what to do with just over 31 acres of idle land it owns next to BCIC’s 120-acre Brownsville Sports Park, which opened in 2008.

In September, BCIC announced it had chosen Chicago-based real estate consultant Hunden Partners to conduct a comprehensive Market Demand and Financial Feasibility Study for potential development of the tract, and lead the process of soliciting and selecting a developer.

Cori Pena, BCIC president and CEO, presented Hunden’s initial market findings report at the economic development organization’s Nov. 25 board meeting.

In drafting the report, the consultant referenced BCIC’s 2025-2029 strategic plan and spoke with key community stakeholders, including Sports Park staff, city of Brownsville, Cameron County, Brownsville Public Utilities Board, Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation and others, she said. Hunden also performed a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis, Pena said.

The consultant found that the 31-acre site “offers an opportunity to build on the Sport Park’s reputation as a destination for sports, community events and tourism,” she said.

The report identified challenges as well, including limited visibility from I-69E and lack of high-traffic areas, which hinders a potential retail component and viability for large-scale sporting events; limited opportunities for high-wage jobs and gaps in infrastructure as well as healthcare access, Pena said.

Hunden’s report presented three alternatives for the property. The first is to build a 45,000-square-foot, 5,000-seat event center/arena for concerts, sporting and cultural events, with a 150-room, upscale hotel and food and beverage tenants on site, she said. This would be a high-impact alternative with “enhanced tourism and community engagement,” though it would also require substantial public funding to build, Pena said.

The second alternative is to build rental town homes with a minor retail component and green space, which would require less public funding but also have less economic impact, she said. The third alternative — and the one recommended by Hunden as the best use for the 31 acres — is to combine an event center/arena/hotel with town homes/retail/green space, Pena said.

For the event center/arena component, the report used Stride Bank Center in Enid, Oklahoma, and Tahoe Blue Event Center in Stateline, Nevada, as reference points. The third alternative would also require a parking garage as opposed to surface parking, according to the consultant.

“Considering the size of the project site it may be possible to development elements of both scenarios with a few modifications, one of the most notable being the conversion of surface parking into a multi-story parking garage,” Hunden reported. “While combining the two scenarios would require significantly increased density, it would likely be the most impactful way to address a variety of underserved assets and maximize activity.”

“It just is a great mix, especially with the lack of housing that we do have,” Pena said.

Hunden recommended against a larger event center/arena due to the greater cost of construction and competition from nearby larger facilities, namely the 6,800-seat Payne Arena in Hidalgo and the 9,000-seat Bert Ogden Arena in Edinburg.

Pena said a 5,000-seat arena at the Sports Park would be able to accommodate graduations — relevant in light of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s decision to relocate commencement ceremonies from Brownsville to the Edinburg campus.

Cameron County voters on two occasions narrowly defeated a ballot proposition that would have allowed the use of Hotel Occupancy Tax funds to help the county build a $100 million, 10,000-seat, mixed-use arena to anchor the 1,300-acre Madeira master-planned community now under construction in north Brownsville.

The first time was November 2021 and the second was in May 2022. Part of the county’s pitch in encouraging passage of the propositions was to provide an indoor space for college graduations in Brownsville.

BCIC board member Mark Horowitz noted during the Nov. 25 meeting that most of the precincts in Brownsville voted in favor of the propositions, while voters in the northern part of the county did not.

“That’s why they went down,” he said. “I think there were a bunch of city elections and local elections in northern Cameron County, and that’s why those measures were defeated.”

Pena said the next step is to provide Hunden with feedback from board members in response to the initial report, and that Hunden was to deliver a draft report on financial projections and economic impact analysis on each alternative by Tuesday, then have a final report on Dec. 24 addressing comments and feedback. The Tuesday analysis, if it has been delivered to BCIC, has not been made public.

“The final report will be done by end of December, and then we’ll take that to the board in January on the findings,” Pena said. “From there we will move forward with the (Request for Qualifications/Request for Proposals) to solicit developers.”

On Dec. 4, The Brownsville Herald sent an email to Pena and BCIC Director of Marketing and Communications Nelson Amaro, requesting a copy of the Hunden report presented by Pena at the Nov. 25 board meeting, which was live-streamed on YouTube.

Amaro replied: “Under the Texas Public Information Act, BCIC has 10 business days to respond. We will provide the requested (copy) of the presentation within this timeframe.”

As of deadline, Amaro has refused to provide the already published public document to The Herald.

The post Brownsville officials consider options to develop next to Sports Park appeared first on MyRGV.com.