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News Article
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Ready, set, change San Jacinto
By Sito Negron
EL PASO-The Mills Building, an iconic Downtown structure, is in the final stages of a renovation that will bring it up to 21st-century office standards while retaining – actually, restoring – its 19th century grandeur.
But the building doesn’t stand alone, and soon, El Pasoans will be asked to participate in an exercise that goes far beyond the building – public meetings in January to create a vision and a mechanism to recreate San Jacinto Plaza, the center of the city’s core.
“We got some things going to make Downtown spectacular,” said Brent Harris, president of Mills Plaza Properties, the Paul Foster-backed company that owns the Plaza Hotel, in addition to renovating the almost 100 year-old, 12-story Mills Building and adding a nine-story garage.
If it works, the process will result in a consensus for San Jacinto Plaza, a renovated core of the center of Downtown – where the tallest office buildings are – and an element of the Downtown Plan come to fruition, with public and private investment transforming the swath from the Mills to Interstate 10.
From south to north, there’s the Plaza Theater, the Mills Building, San Jacinto Plaza, El Paso Museum of Art, the Civic Center, Cleveland Square, the Downtown Library, El Paso Museum of History and the Doubletree Hotel.
“It’s a pretty big picture we’re looking at,” Harris said.
Recent history
It might not be easy, as many people still remember the contentious meetings following the unveiling of the Downtown Plan just a few years ago.
At those meetings, there was a widespread feeling that the public was not being invited to help create a vision, but rather being nudged toward support of an already-developed proposal.
Reyes Mata, who has operated Del Pueblo Publishing business in various Downtown locations, including the Cortez Building on San Jacinto Plaza, opposite the Mills Building, expressed guarded optimism.
“He (Foster) is to be commended, of course, for investing his own private dollars to assist in Downtown revitalization, but that still doesn’t mean the placita is a private front yard,” said Mata. “I hope that every El Pasoan has the opportunity to say what they believe needs to be done.”
Mata himself proposed a turning San Jacinto Plaza into an open-air coliseum-inspired arena with regional historical motifs.
The public buy-in starts with charettes, a planning process that brings stakeholders – building owners, city officials and members of the public – into the same room.
“We would like to set up a public meeting for the first part of January,” Harris said, with the auditorium at the Downtown Library as a likely location.
Harris said the public would be invited to hear what they’re trying to do, and they want hear what people have to say.
Public park
“Even though Paul and our group is spearheading it, and it’s something that is going to take Downtown to the next level, it’s a public park. This isn’t Paul’s park, it’s a public park,” Harris said.
Foster’s group has offered to pay for the design, but Harris says El Paso has to make an investment in itself, and ultimately, the city is going to pay for improvements.
City manager Joyce Wilson said there is no commitment to a bond issue, but it’s a strong possibility.
“It will be given serious consideration particularly in light of the efforts to upgrade the property surrounding the park,” Wilson said.
Early next year, she said, the city is planning to roll out a public process to develop items for a 2011 bond issue.
Wilson said from the Mills to the Doubletree, the projects can create a synergy for an area that is a business and hospitality and entertainment district.
“There is going to be a need for some additional public improvements to connect them,” she said. The city is going to be an open and willing participant to that process. It’s all part of the Downtown Plan. The area you’re focusing on now called for exactly what’s happening.”
Another funding mechanism is the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, which collects the “increment” as property values rise above a baseline set in 2006. That increase is to be spent on projects within the zone, although as city Economic Development Director Kathy Dodson said, “It’s not bringing in a whole lot of money right now.”
Transportation hub
The changes at San Jacinto Plaza could range from little things – like being able to sit on the grass to have lunch, Harris said – to the large, like taking one or more traffic lanes from Oregon and Mesa on the west and east sides of the park.
And as he pointed out, the plaza connects to the Mills Building and the Mills Plaza, where the city already has agreed to close a portion of Mills Street, and there are natural connections to the museums, library, Civic Center and Doubletree Hotel, linking an entire district.
A transportation hub for decades, the plaza is now virtually empty much of the time, since the city relocated Sun Metro bus routes.
According to an article in “Borderlands, the El Paso Community College history project, San Jacinto Plaza was a transit hub as early as 1907, when horse-drawn carriages circled the park. It became a bus hub in the 1950s.
The article also explains the more than 100-year history of the plaza: “J. Fisher Satterwaite, El Paso Parks and Streets Commissioner, can be credited for the transformation of the Plaza from a desolate piece of property to a public square by 1883. He had trees planted, fountains built and alligators placed in the pond.”
But now, said city Rep. Beto O’Rourke, San Jacinto park is a disappointment.
“It’s poorly designed for almost any use, including recreation, relaxation or social gatherings; the green space is unusable; and there are more signs warning people not to sit on grass, not to litter, etc., than there are people enjoying the park,” he said.
O’Rourke likes the example of Bryant Park in Manhattan, once a run-down park in a business district, next to the public library and other important cultural institutions. “Through a public-private initiative, it has become a vibrant urban park that New Yorkers are proud of,” he said.
As the pieces come together around the plaza and Downtown in general, Harris said, change will have to come.
“It’s going to create the opportunity to force people to upgrade their buildings,” he said. “It becomes a very contagious environment when everybody around you looks nice, but your building’s not leased.”
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