Noble Texas Builders to build new home for Harlingen-San Benito VFW

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Harlingen-San Benito VFW Post 2410 will have a new home soon thanks to an effort spearheaded by Rio Grande Valley-based Noble Texas Builders, which is headquartered in La Feria and has offices San Antonio and Houston.

Rene Capistran, the company’s president and CEO, speaking at a press conference on Veterans Day, said he first got wind of the dilapidated state of Post 2410, built 70 years ago at 2006 N. Whalen Rd. in Harlingen, from a news story during the pandemic.

Capistran, himself a Navy veteran, said he texted his executive assistant, Christine Blouch, to find out who to contact with the post, and within days was meeting with members, who gave him a tour.

What he saw was a structure on its last legs, with rotted wood, leaks and major drainage problems due to the fact that its lower than surrounding development. Capistran said it was obvious the only solution was to demolish and start from scratch.

“At first it was a very hard pill to swallow. … The fact it, there was no repairing that facility,” he said.

Still, Post 2410 would get a new hall, one way or another, Capistran assured the veterans. Noble would help raise the funds, he said, urging patience.

“I didn’t know how, but I knew that we could,” Capistran said.

Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr. and U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez both were on board with the idea. Gonzalez, in fact, secured an $850,000 federal grant for the project, which Capistran estimates will cost around $2.2 million total. The county is contributing $50,000 from American Rescue Plan Act funds and may increase that amount before the end of the year, according to Treviño.

“We are committed to helping make this project a reality,” he said at the press conference.

Finally, more than a dozen of Noble’s subcontractors from around the Valley and as far away as San Antonio stepped forward to pledge services and materials at no cost, Capistran said. He expressed gratitude to the subcontractors who are pitching in and to the veterans of Post 2410 and elsewhere for their service to the country.

Capistran said the plan is to complete the new structure on the same property before demolishing the old one, allowing the post to transition smoothly into its new home.

Taking his turn at the podium, Gonzalez said his first tour of Post 2410 came when he was still representing Texas’ 15th Texas congressional district and before he was elected to District 34, and that he was shocked to see the building’s condition. He remodeled his first VFW hall, in Brooks County, back then and started looking for others that needed help, he said.

“I went and looked at a lot of different VFWs,” Gonzalez said. “I wasn’t representing Harlingen yet, but it was still in the region, and Congressman (Filemon) Vela and I always worked on projects. When we’re in Washington, nobody asks if you’re District 15 or 34. They just see us as a region, and we worked very well together as a region.”

Gonzalez said he gets approximately $15 million in federal Community Funding Projects each cycle to spend how he sees fit, such as for drainage projects. Going forward, he intends to “do at least one VFW every cycle,” Gonzalez said.

“I’ve campaigned throughout the years at a lot of different VFWs, and one thing that I noticed is they were falling apart,” he said. “They were dilapidated. They just needed some investment. … Now the word is out. I was in Mercedes and they asked me about the VFW there. So we still have work to do. This is the beginning of an amazing journey in taking care of those who’ve taken care of us and our country.”

As for Post 2410 project, it “really involved the entire community,” Gonzalez said, giving kudos to Capistran for getting the ball rolling.

“I’ve never seen everybody come together like this before, by the way, so thank you, Rene, for bringing us all together,” he said.

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