Dozens of officials from Cameron County, Brownsville and elsewhere around the Valley joined local business people and assorted stakeholders in the Madeira master-planned community project for a ceremonial groundbreaking on Feb. 23.
The festivities relocated to the Casa de los Ebanos event venue just up the road for a planned reception, during which Madeira developer Dennis Sanchez and city and county officials spoke about the project — and the proposed county arena the developers and officials hope will be part of it, pending approval by voters.
Plans for the 1,300-acre-plus Madeira community envision a combination of residential and commercial construction, featuring 3,000 residential lots and six miles of commercial frontage, including retail and entertainment aspects. The design is by Minnesota-based land planner Rick Harrison, who designed the Tres Lagos master-planned community in McAllen and Palo Alto Groves in Brownsville. The Madeira property is just north of the South Texas Academy for Medical Professions and just east of I-69E.
Nothing on Madeira’s scale has been built in Brownsville, said Sanchez, co-manager of Madeira Properties Ltd. development company, though he credited developer Bill Hudson’s Paseo de la Resaca development for setting the standard by putting in hike-and-bike trails and other amenities.
“He changed the way development was done in Brownsville and he really set the bar,” Sanchez said. “We came along probably 16 years after that and developed the Santander subdivision. At that time we looked at what (Hudson) did and said, well, let’s try to at least do that good, because he’s giving something back.”
Sanchez and his co-developers purchased the Madeira property 20 years ago, though it’s the over the last 10 years that Sanchez has pushed the city repeatedly to create the necessary Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone. Finally, in late 2020, the city commission approved creation of the TIRZ necessary for Madeira to move forward. The commission had voted down the same TIRZ proposal in 2019.
Sanchez said the TIRZ is a tool offered by the state that will allow Madeira Properties to set a new standard for other developers.
“It’s basically where a developer puts up the money, builds the amenity, and then over 30 years they get paid back from the increased taxes on that piece of property” he said. “It doesn’t cost the city, or the county, or the governmental entity one nickel. If the development doesn’t work, if it goes broke, that’s the problem of the developer. It’s not the problem of the municipality or the county.”
Sanchez said there’s a misconception that the county or municipality foots the bill if a TIRZ project fails. What the TIRZ will do is allow Madeira Properties to build something “that everybody’s going to be proud of,” he said, adding that the homes will be priced for middle-class and upper-middle-class buyers.
“That’s our aim and that’s our goal, and we’re going to do it,” Sanchez said.
The property is nine miles from Ruben Torres Boulevard in Brownsville, nine miles from Ed Carey Drive in Harlingen, eight miles from the middle of Los Fresnos and four miles from San Benito, he noted.
“We are a community that’s located centrally in this county. … We want everybody to enjoy this property,” Sanchez said.
Another key step was the city commission passage in June of an ordinance annexing roughly 685 acres of the Madeira property — at the developers’ request — and directing that municipal services be extended to it. Brownsville City Manager Noel Bernal, taking his turn at the microphone, called the project a game-changer for the city.
“It’s more tax base,” he said. “We can do more as a city because of the decision of the development team to build here.”
Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr. also spoke, saying that Madeira will enhance quality of life for county residents and making a pitch for why a $100 million, 10,000-seat multipurpose arena should be part of the project. A proposition that would have allowed a percentage of the county’s Hotel Occupancy Tax, or venue/visitor tax, to be used to finance the arena project was defeated by voters in November.
In 2016, voters approved the same type of HOT financing for improvements to Isla Blanca Park and construction of the South Texas Ecotourism Center. Treviño said the Madeira arena proposition will be back on the ballot for the May 7 local elections asked everyone present to commit to supporting, promoting and voting for the project.
He stressed, again, that a “yes” vote on the arena does not equal a hike in property taxes, since the financing revenue is already there in the form of venue-tax revenue. If the proposition passes in May, it simply allows that revenue to be used as financing for the arena, Treviño said, adding that there’s no reason Cameron County shouldn’t have the same amenities as Hidalgo County.
“That visitor tax is used by the local community, whether it’s Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Chicago, New York or L.A., and they use it for quality-of-life economic development projects in their own community, and well they should,” he said. “This master planned development is going to be successful. It’s going to be beautiful. It’s going to be unbelievable. But just imagine how much more of an impact … it will have if we have an arena that is able to host all sorts of events.”
Sanchez said it would be “absolutely great” to have the arena as part of Madeira and that he thinks voters will support it once they realize it won’t impact property taxes, though if the proposition passes May 7 it will still take about two years to “put everything together” before the arena could be built.
“The tax is already there,” he said. “It’s a question of where’s the next venue going to go?”
