COSTEP: We’ve created a centralized data platform for the entire Rio South Texas region

MISSION, Texas – When he came back from ICSC@Red River at the start of the month, land developer Rene Alcalá had a suggestion for all the Rio Grande Valley cities and economic development groups.

The director of business development for Killam Development said now that the Valley has largely embraced the “One Region, One Voice” mantra it was time for one central databank. 

Alcalá said when he and others are trying to market the Valley as one region, it makes no sense to be hunting for some key pieces of data from McAllen, and other key pieces of data from Mission, etc. 

In an exclusive interview with the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service, Alcalá said he hoped one regional entity, such as the Rio Grande Valley Partnership (RGVP) or the Council for South Texas Economic Progress (COSTEP) would collate all the available data and put it into one large databank.

That way, he said, everyone in the Valley would be singing from the same hymn sheet.

Step forward COSTEP. Following Alcalá’s remarks in the Guardian, COSTEP posted a statement on social media saying it already has a centralized databank up and running.

“COSTEP, Council for South Texas Economic Progress is providing the GIS Webtech Guru platform to local economic development organizations (EDOs) and all community stakeholders with the intent of having centralized uniform data available for the promotion of the region,” the statement read.

“The platform has over 1,000-plus properties from around the seven-county region served by COSTEP at any given time. Properties are regularly updated, being listed or removed based on their availability. The tool also has the ability for authorized users to add properties that are not listed on property databases, as in the case of an owner represented property. 

“The intent is to have a centralized data platform that the entire region can use to market the region for industrial and commercial attraction.”

The seven counties COSTEP works in are Cameron, Willacy, Hidalgo, Starr, Zapata, Jim Hogg and Webb. It also assists the border municipalities of Nuevo Laredo, Guerrero, Mier, Miguel Aleman, Camargo, Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, Reynosa, Rio Bravo, Valle Hermosa, and Matamoros in Mexico. 

In an interview with the Guardian, COSTEP’s economic development director, Rick Carrera, said his group uses the highly-regarded ESRI software to manage its data.

“I know there’s been talk about getting a central databank but we’ve had it for quite some time. The data has been available on the COSTEP website for some time now. It even dates back previous to my start at COSTEP. What we’ve done is we’ve made it more prominent on the website,” Carrera said.

“There’s a data tab that you can click on and from there you can find data sets ranging from workforce, to population, to demographics. You can even find data relative to specific properties, to specific geographic areas that you can pinpoint on maps. So it’s very thorough.”

ESRI is so good, Carrera said, that the Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council uses it for its 9-1-1 communications. 

Asked how much work is involved for COSTEP staff to keep the data updated, Carrera said: “We actually have somebody do that for us. So, for us it’s a turnkey thing. It’s a click and use. And it is always being updated. 

“The data tools are there as well as the mapping tools. You can pull up particular properties. You can add facilities to them, buildings, drive times, workforce availability, and within a certain geographic region, heat maps. It’s all there.”

Carrera said the Valley’s smaller economic development organizations would likely get most value from COSTEP’s databank.

“The smaller EDCs, the smaller rural areas, they’re probably the biggest benefactors because on their own they don’t have access to a lot of the data,” he said. 

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