Raudel Garza provides the inside story on how Zoho came to choose Edinburg

MCALLEN, Texas – Raudel Garza, executive director of Edinburg Economic Development Corporation, has explained how Zoho Corporation came to choose Edinburg as the location for their expansion in the Rio Grande Valley, and specifically the iconic Echo Hotel. 

“A couple of years ago, we decided at the Edinburgh EDC that the Echo Hotel needed to be revitalized, and we wanted to take it upon ourselves to do something a little bit different. And so, I convinced the board and then the city council to go buy the Echo Hotel,” Garza said.

“I said, we don’t have to buy it. Realtors know all this. By the way, I ran a real estate company, actually several, so I know that background. and what I told them was, let’s tie it up, give him some hard money, tie it up for a year, and let’s go market the property. And that’s what we ended up doing.”

Garza continued: “And while we went and we tied up the property, we were about to publish a request for proposals so that we could invite interested parties to send in ideas on how to redevelop that property. And then a contract came up to my desk. I looked at that contract and I recognized the name on the contract, and I said, I recognize the broker too.

“I said to the lady that presented this contract to me, who was a broker, I said, I know these folks. It wasn’t under Zoho. It never is. Most of these companies have holding companies that have other names, right? And so, she said, no, nobody knows who they are. I was like, yeah, yeah, I know. But I didn’t want to argue with her. I said, Thank you so much. And I said, by the way, you’re too late. We have the property. And she is like, oh, okay.”

Garza then called the broker. 

“So, the background is this. This particular broker had been asking us for months, and probably some of the other local economic development corporations, for large tracts of land. He was representing Zoho, unbeknownst to us, unbeknownst to probably everybody. He had tried to find an alternative to the 90 acres (Zoho had) in McAllen.”

Garza said Edinburg EDC makes sure that everybody who asks for information gets the information that they’re looking for. 

“We send out the information. I sent out a bunch of information on large tracts of land, anything that was 500 acres or more, and sent that out to this broker out of Austin. I didn’t know who he was representing, but I knew his name. And I knew the Zoho’s guy’s name because I saw the news. I kept up with what was going on in McAllen. So, when this contract was presented to me, I saw those two names. I finally put two and two together. I said, yeah, I know these guys. I called the broker and said, we have that property under contract. And he says, don’t do anything with it. And so, they presented an agreement to us, and eight months later, they closed on the property.”

Garza said Zoho had, through their broker, been talking to Edinburg EDC for over a year and a half. 

Garza made these comments in a presentation to the Greater McAllen Association of Realtors. He told the brokers in the audience that they need patience.

“A lot of people forget that some of these deals will take three or four or five years before they develop into something real. But be patient as a broker, as the agent for the property owner or for the company. When someone comes in and somebody asks for information, answer it. Answer it, because they might be testing you, and two years later you find out, oh, that was them. So, keep responding to those guys, even though you think they might be tire kickers. Keep responding because they’ll remember you.”

Garza then told a long story about a protected land deal he worked on when he was in Laredo. He said he had to battle residents who did not like the idea of a detention pond being part of the project. Every time I went to City Council in Laredo to ask for permission to do something with that property, it was met with a lot of opposition,” Garza said. “It taught me a lot about for perseverance. We keep on trucking, keep on going.”

Garza said he saw that perseverance on the face of Raju Vegesna, the principal evangelist for Zoho in McAllen. Vegesna was having difficulties getting a development to happen in McAllen.

“He (Vegesna) was going to keep on going (whatever the obstacles). I just reached out to him and said, if I could ever do anything for you, let me know. The next day, he responded to that email, and we met. I didn’t think anything of it. Eight months later is when that contract came in. I didn’t know that they were looking at Edinburg. We just responded. Every customer that comes into our office, we respond.”

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