Patridge: European company to place its North American headquarters in McAllen

MCALLEN, Texas – McAllen Economic Development Corporation will be announcing the arrival of two new companies to the city within the next few weeks, says the group’s president and CEO.

Keith Patridge appeared on News Talk 710 KURV this week to give an update on the work of MEDC.

“We have two companies that we will be committing, probably within the next week or two weeks. One of them is a European company that has, for several months, been acquiring land. And they just notified us yesterday that they’re going to put their North American headquarters in McAllen. That’s about a $600 million project. So it’s a big one,” Patridge told the radio station.

“And then we have one that we’re really happy about. It’s a an aerospace company, a technology company, and we will probably be announcing them within the next week to two weeks. They’ve decided on the space.”

KURV morning show co-host Sergio Sanchez asked if SpaceX was the catalyst for the aerospace company coming to McAllen. “No it’s not. It’s a company that services the defense (industry),” Patridge responded.

Overall, MEDC is seeing “a little bit of a slow down,” Patridge said. But, he hastened to add, MEDC is not so much seeing a slow down in the number of leads they are getting. It is more a case of a slow down in the decision-making process.

“Right now we’re working 27 active leads,” Patridge said. “That means companies that we’re in communication with almost on a daily or weekly basis.”

What is interesting about those 27 active leads, Patridge said, is that 23 of them are focused on the McAllen side of the border, while only four are looking at the Reynosa side of the border.

If MEDC was to land all 23 of those leads, it would need about 1.6 million square feet of space, Patridge said. He said that would become an issue because MEDC needs more industrial space.

What is also interesting, Patridge said, is that of those 23 leads, 12 are companies from Mexico that are looking to establish operations in the United States.

“That’s a trend that we have been seeing over the last several months, but it seems to be increasing, where we’re seeing Mexico companies now that are wanting to, I guess, dip their toe in the water in the United States,” Patridge said.

“And, of course, they know McAllen, most of them have family or close friends (here) and so they’re selecting McAllen as a place to locate, That’s exciting because it’s nice to see that two-way exchange rather than just maquilas going into Mexico.”

Patridge also spoke about three companies that want to build their own industrial plants.

“We have three companies that are actually looking at greenfield sites for building new plants. And those three would require 1,240 acres of land and involve thousands of jobs,” Patridge said. “So, those are longer term projects that we’re working.”

Patridge added: “They’re going to build their own. That will be a build-to-suit type of operation, if we’re successful at bringing them in.”

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