| Business Section El Paso Times Sunday, November 2, 2003 Bermudez envisions growth in Juarez by Louie Gilot El Paso Times JUAREZ -- In the midst of a maquila flight from Ju·rez, developers are plotting construction in the south of town. Bermudez International is building its newest industrial park here in more than 10 years on a dirt lot well south of the Juarez airport -- once considered outside of town. The development, a mix of residential, industrial and commercial buildings, represents a $400 million investment. Company President Sergio Bermudez knows the statistics: In the past three years, Juarez lost 132 plants and gained only 69 new ones, for a net loss of 63 plants. The Bermudez family's flagship park, Parque Bermudez has lost six tenants and gained none this year. But shrinking now would help no one, Bermudez said. "The more alternatives you offer, the better. The more you stimulate the economy. If you want to be a little town, you'll be a little town," he said. Growing city Along with Bermudez, real estate developers Manuel Quevedo Reyes and Cesar Verdes have bought land on the city's newest development zone, "El Barreal." Last year, the Municipal Institute for Investigation and Planning in Juarez decided to push back city limits to allow for the development of 22,230 acres south of Libramiento Aeropuerto in the next 15 to 20 years. Pedro Cital, the institute's assistant director, said the infrastructure plan for the first 8,500 acres will be completed in six months. Cital said city planners are looking ahead because demographic projections have Juarez city population doubling to 2.5 million by 2020. "We need a reserve area to build onto," he said. The last such project, "Zona Sur," the south zone, sprouted around and south of the airport in 1995 and is now a booming industrial, residential and commercial area with wide, fluid roadways and modern malls. City planners are guarded about its success, saying there are still empty lots to fill, government offices to install and recreational areas to invent. The government-funded "minicasas," mini houses, built to alleviate the 50,000 to 60,000-house shortage, has drawn the public's ire for their diminutive size and questionable quality. But real estate developers applaud the orderly development. "The city now has a master plan and is sticking to it," said Tres Hendrix, director of marketing at Intermex Industrial Parks, the developer of the new 13-acre Wal-Mart Supercenter on De Las Torres Avenue. Growing corridor At "El Barreal," city workers are already laying a grid of electrical lines, even as a lone rancher leads his cows through their towers. The city has promised to build a water treatment plant nearby and to link Panamericana Road to Independencia Boulevard, which will lead straight to the Zaragoza Bridge. On the other side of that bridge, maquila suppliers in El Paso's East Side have great hopes to see their business increase. Mike White, managing director of the El Paso office of CB Richard Ellis, predicted a spurt in industrial real estate on the East Side in the next 15 to 20 years. "We've always mirrored what's going on in Ju·rez about 12 months later. This is going to be the next phase in industrial development," he said of the Barreal projects. Together with proposals to build a wider international bridge in Fabens, to lengthen Loop 375 and to install a new Dedicated Commuter Lane at the Zaragoza bridge, "El Barreal" could make the East Side into El Paso's premier industrial hub. Tom Kennel of Industrial Maintenance Specialists, a 50-employee East Side dealer of forklifts and other heavy equipment, almost bought land around the Zaragoza Bridge a few years back. He didn't because, at the time, Santa Teresa was said to be the industrial boomtown of the future. "I should have trusted my instinct," he said. A concept When Jaime Bermudez, Sergio Bermudez's father, built the first industrial park in Juarez 30 years ago, it was state-of-the-art. But the concept to have large warehouse-like operations huddled together is passé. For a few years now, developers have tried a new model: parks that intertwine industrial plants, housing and commercial buildings. Sergio Bermudez tried it 12 years ago with the Panamericano Park, on Panamericana Road. There, half of the land is dedicated to plants such as AT&T, Siemens and Nichirin, and the other half is housing for maquiladora workers. With his new projects on "El Barreal," the 682-acre Punta del Este I, and the 1,155-acre Punta del Este II, Bermudez has refined the formula. Punta del Este I, scheduled to break ground before the end of the year, will be 50 percent housing, 16 percent industrial with four plants, and 9 percent commercial. The other 25 percent is roadway and parks. "We want to do a subdivision where the workers have schools, supermarkets, houses and work close by. They could go to work by bicycle," said Bermudez's architect, Manuel Lopez Poo, of Ciaa Arquitectos Asociados in Chihuahua City. The land for the Punta del Este projects was bought by Jaime Bermudez in 1976 on the advice of a friend who said the area around the airport was bound to grow one day, Sergio Bermudez said. Bermudez said he would develop the land the way he knows best, concentrating on the industrial and commercial part. He has already sold the residential land to four Ju·rez residential real estate developers. They will be build 6,000 houses there in three to four years, he said. Bermudez said he was already approached by companies who want to relocate from older plants in Juarez to his Punta del Este park. Out of an estimated 50 million square feet of industrial space in Juarez, 4.3 million square feet are currently vacant in 52 buildings. Thirty four of these building are 10 to 20 years old. Louie Gilot may be reached at lgilot@elpasotimes.com; Source: The National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Computing, or INEGI |
||||
Then & now How many maquilas in Juarez? How many maquila employees in Juarez? Maquila payroll in Juarez: Unemployment in Juarez: |
||||