Satellite campus to help develop new businesses

RAYMONDVILLE - A satellite campus of the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texsa Southmost College will include office space available for rent to start-up businesses, officials said Monday.

Officials said they will use a $300,000 federal grant to develop a business incubator project at the UTB-TSC satellite campus that is set to break ground here next month.

"We're looking at bringing in new businesses," Mayor Lonnie Correa said.

At first, officials planned to use the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant to renovate the old Wal-Mart building into office space, City Manager Eleazar Garcia said.

Instead, they agreed to lump the HUD grant with a $1.25 million U.S. Department of Commerce grant that's earmarked to develop the satellite campus, Garcia said.

"It made more sense to put it all together," Garcia said.

Under the new plan, the HUD grant will expand the overall project by 3,000 square feet, to 13,000 square feet, Garcia said.

Officials plan to develop a 3,000- to 5,000-square-foot incubator project, said John Sossi, director of the university's International Innovative Center.

The project will feature five to six offices as part of the program that will offer lower-cost rent to start-up businesses, Sossi said.

The program will also offer funding and help draft business plans, he said.

"Incubating a business is like incubating a baby," said Jackie Roberson, the city's economic development manager. "They'll have the tools to grow in a way that they can be successful. It means hiring more people and that's how our community benefits."

Officials will model the project after the university's Brownsville program, which has helped develop 49 businesses that created 554 jobs in the last five years, Sossi said.

"We try to use the experience that we have had," Sossi said.

Next month, city and university officials plan to break ground on the satellite campus expected to open in August 2009.

For decades, travel and transportation has been a hurdle for many of the county's large number of low-income residents, Correa said.

The campus will bring higher education to residents whose distance from college towns kept them home, he said.

The campus will feature about three classrooms and a 600-square-foot computer lab, Garcia said.

While university instructors will stand at the podium to teach some classes, "distance learning" will use monitors to bring other classes to Raymondville, James Holt, the university's dean of workforce training, said in an earlier interview.

Officials had not projected enrollment, he said.

A survey of about 200 residents found most wanted the campus to teach a basic "core curriculum" of freshman and sophomore level classes like English, Holt said.

Officials call the project "a one-stop shop" for residents here.

Workforce Solutions, part of the Texas Workforce Commission, will open a 3,000-square-foot office in the building, officials said.

The city's Economic Development office and the Raymondville Chamber of Commerce will also be located in the building, Garcia said.

Officials will build the campus on 20 acres across the street from Raymondville High School, he said.