Everything Janie Cavazos said at this month's South Texas Manufacturers Association meeting

Rio Grande Guardian's Podcast

MCALLEN, Texas - Ten new industrial parks are to be built in the City of Pharr or its ETJ, with almost 11 million square feet of warehouse space.

This news was conveyed by Janie Cavazos, vice president of business recruitment, at a meeting of the South Texas Manufacturers Association. The meeting was held at the DoubleTree Suites by Hilton in McAllen.

“We have a lot of activity going on in Pharr. We're really excited about that,” Cavazos said.

ETJ stands for extraterritorial jurisdiction.

Details about the new industrial parks were provided when Cavazos spoke about the next Warehouse Summit, which will take place in October. As with previous summits, it will be hosted jointly by Pharr EDC and the Pharr Bridge Board.

“In that summit, we are going to have a lot of… we currently have about ten industrial parks that are in the mix. Six of them are within the Pharr city limits. The rest are within the ETJ. We're going to be announcing how much square footage each park is going to be constructing. The total amount of square footage for those proposed parks will be close to 11 million square feet. This will be cold storage and dry warehouse construction.

“Also in October, I'll be showcasing some of the construction that is currently happening in Pharr, especially in the industrial warehouse sector.”

Cavazos also spoke about a commercial and investment tour scheduled for September 24.

“We are targeting a lot of the different companies. We will have some developers, some site selectors. We have Mexican investors that are coming in to look at commercial property and industrial property as well,” Cavazos said.

In addition to a tour of land available for development, there will be a panel discussion, Cavazos explained.

“Our panel is going to be really interesting. We are going to be announcing the Pharr Global Business Hub. We are going to have the Consejo Empresarial Mexicano de Comercio Exteriores. It is a Mexican private sector organization dedicated to promoting the area and bringing foreign investors. So, we're looking forward to that.”

Cavazos said the Council for South Texas Economic progress will also be involved.

“We will be having them as panelists. And we're also going to be having TeamPharr.Net broadband service team. This is a digital divide type of solution for our citizens in Pharr and it is fast fiber internet for the next generation WiFi. So, we're going to be having a panelist on that.”

Cavazos added: “We are going to have a bus tour to showcase the different areas that we have available for either commercial, retail, maybe residential, apartment complexes, and more specifically for industrial.”

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