Port and Inland Parcels Sprout New Businesses
Published Oct 07, 2008
Justin and Dylan Armendariz watch in wonder at the Texas State Aquarium.
A visitor to the Coastal Bend area might conclude that the local bird is the construction crane, and with good reason.
With everything on the table from targeted incentives to hospitality packages, companies are growing in, and expanding into, the area like never before.
Perhaps the most visible beneficiary of the growth is the Port of Corpus Christi, which has opened up four new industrial sites, including a “greenfield” (previously undeveloped) site adjacent to the Joe Fulton International Trade Corridor.
All the current activity is taking place on Inner Harbor land, with hundreds of acres outside the harbor still untouched, making a good growth picture even better, says Michael Perez, the port’s director of business development.
“We are one of the few U.S. ports that still have large acres of land available on deep water,” Perez says. “Once we have leased out all the land in the inner harbor, we’ll be working in the outer harbor. There we’ll be working with San Patricio County, where the La Quinta [Trade Gateway] Terminal is being built, and with Naval Station Ingleside, which is being closed as part of the base realignment.
“We’ve got the land here, and we’ve been marketing it, and we’re seeing a ton of cargo move through the port,” Perez says. “With five parcels, we’re in a really good spot right now.”
Robust Robstown
The rampant optimism is equally apparent due west in Robstown, where a regional outlet mall is going up alongside the Richard M. Borchard Regional Fairgrounds. It’s the latest coup for the Robstown Area Development Commission, which has seen more activity in the last six to 10 years than in the previous 30, according to Ken Faughn, executive director.
“We opened our baseball field six years ago and the fairgrounds two years ago, and they’ve been busy from the start,” Faughn says. “The city has improved its Main Street, and with this outlet mall we’re going to be targeting a whole new audience.”
The shopping mall is on 45 acres, with additional acreage available for expansion, and it is expected to be fully operational by fall 2009.
“We think this could be the start of the area being a destination for outlets, and that’s something we’re looking at promoting,” Faughn says. “We’ve had two new apartment complexes built over the last four years, and we hadn’t had any building of that kind for 30 years. We’ve also had two new hotels go up, Things are changing on the landscape here, and it’s a result of everyone working together to improve things in the city, the county and the whole area.”
Pitching for Visitors
Also contributing to the vitality of the Coastal Bend economy is the influx of business visitors – from small groups to full-blown conventions – as well as traditional vacationers.
“In the fiscal year ending July 31, 2008, we booked more than twice as many convention room nights as we did two years ago,” says Keith Arnold, chief executive officer of the Corpus Christi Convention & Visitors Bureau. “We have more than 120,000 room nights, including 27 pieces of business, over the next three or four years, which is about double what we had on the books a year ago.”
Arnold credits much of the new business to the CVB’s aggressive, narrowly focused marketing campaign.
“We have been looking at groups that have an interest in coastal and conservation themes,” Arnold says. “It also gives us crossover for our high-profile tourism venues. With the Texas State Aquarium, you can have a board dinner in a room where you’re separated by a glass wall from dolphins, or you can go out to the hangar deck of the USS Lexington (Museum On The Bay) and have a sit-down dinner for 700 people.
“We’ve got so much here that there’s never a cookie-cutter approach. It’s an incredible region, and we are becoming nationally and internationally known.”
Story by Joe Morris
Photo by Jesse Knish
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