Luxury Living

The future of Rivercentre Plaza, on FJRM Boulevard, a mixed-use commercial and retail development, figures to have little in common with its past.

A decade ago the landscape was decidedly working class with 144,000 square-feet of manufacturing and warehousing facilities. Trucks hauled clothing, electronics and furniture to markets across the nation.

Four months ago the last of the old Brownsville Compress & Warehouse Company buildings was demolished to make way for development.

The Trammell Crow Company has closed a deal on seven-acres of land in the Rivercentre Plaza development to build La Estancia, the first luxury student housing community in Brownsville.

“We like what’s happening in Brownsville and the university,” said Chris Harness, senior vice president for Trammell Crow. “I just think the whole area is going to get very vibrant.”

Harness and Trammell Crow will break ground in spring 2008 on six, two and three story apartment buildings with 103 units and 387 single occupancy bedrooms adjacent to the University of Texas Brownsville and Texas Southmost College.

The high-end complex, which is scheduled to open in the fall 2009, will feature fully furnished bedrooms, living areas, kitchens, washer and dryer, high-speed Internet and cable television in each room.

In addition, there will be an exercise facility, a movie theatre and tanning salon. All the frills a pampered college student could want and more for just $500 per month, according to Harness.

“It’s always a little scary being the first guy in the market,” he said. “But, we feel comfortable being first in that market.”

Until now the university has not had this sort of off-campus student housing. Just 326 of the university’s roughly 15,000 students live in the dorms that were fashioned out of defunct hotels in the area.

Harness isn’t concerned despite entering an untested market here. He figures the only reason more students don’t live closer to campus is because they haven’t been provided an alternative.

“There just aren’t a lot of choice for students right now,” he said. “If I lived in Brownsville and my kids went to UTB, I’d probably have them live at home, too.”

Consider David Pearson, vice president for partnership affairs at UTB-TSC, among the impressed. Years ago the university tried to lure Trammell Crow Company, among others, to build on campus.

At the time UTB-TSC offered a market study to assess the feasibility the point at which students could afford housing. The figure it produced was almost exactly what Trammell Crow Company is now projecting.

Pearson believes once the apartments are in place more could soon follow.

“It’s going to look like its part of campus even though its not,” Pearson said. “They’re going to be good neighbors.”

Claudia Casas, a 25-year-old junior UTB-TSC, is studying to be a nurse. Though she lives with her in-laws she thinks off-campus housing is a great idea even at $500 per student.

“I have friends who live in the dorms and they tell me their rooms get pretty cramped,” Casas said.

“I think it will benefit students too,” she added, “by making them more independent. Right now there aren’t a lot of options.”Nobody, however, is more enthused about landing Trammell Crow Company than Laura Little, president of Dyna-Go Properties Inc., and owner and co-developer of the Rivercentre Plaza.

Rivercentre Plaza is Little’s baby, but after 17 years she’s expecting the 32-acre development to finally mature. With the student apartments, Little got a big piece of the puzzle.

“My dad had a vision that one day the bridge was going to be there and this whole area was going to develop,” she said.

That day has finally come.

The master plan for Rivercentre Plaza is still mostly speculative with only a Circle K and Burger King on the board. However, there are indications that the long-time development is gaining momentum.

While the Trammell Crow Company announcement is clearly icing on the cake, several other projects are on the horizon, including a new UETA Tax and Duty Free Americas and First National Bank.

She is also hoping to land a hotel and several restaurants soon.

She has been selling some of the plats for $15 to $18 per square foot, depending on the location of the property. On the low end that would put the Trammell Crow Company property just over $4.5 million.

Though most of the property located between Jackson and Tyler streets is still open fields with waist high grass; Little carries her father’s vision that the area will soon be a hot spot.

In 1990, Francisco J. Rodriguez Martinez, Little’s father, bought the Brownsville Compress & Warehouse Company, which amounted to about 48-acres.

The family leased the warehouses until the lease expired in 1998. Eighteen acres reverted to the UTB-TSC, the remaining 32-acres Rodriguez kept.

Rodriguez was banking on further development in the area, and he would sit back and watch the value of his property rise.

Then the Veterans Memorial Bridge was built and University Boulevard extended. Recently the city paved Jackson Street through Little’s 32-acres and created the cross street FJRM road in honor of her father.

Looking at the vacant lot where the Trammell Crow Company apartments will soon be a smile to Little’s face. She has no doubt they’ll be a hit. Neither does Harness.

“Eventually kids need to move out of the house,” he said. “You give kids a product like ours within walking distance of the university and they will come.”