Killam Development projects in progress

The Shary Village Industrial Park and El Milagro subdivision projects are underway, according to the CEO of the Mission Economic Development Corporation Daniel Silva.

In December 2019, Laredo-based real estate company Killam Development purchased more than 3500 acres of land in Mission and McAllen with the promise of creating new housing, entertainment and educational facilities. Following their purchase, Killam held workshops or charrettes with the local community to get an idea of what people would like to see for this new development.

After some minor delays due to the pandemic, the projects are finally picking up speed and seem to still be on track for the 15-20 year timeline that was promised to the public last year.

For the industrial park, people can expect a groundbreaking in about a month for the tract of land west of the Anzalduas International Bridge. The industrial park will consist of 110 acres which will be broken down into 13 lots, each lot will be between six to 10 acres. Silva said this will help with the anticipation for international traffic coming over on the Anzalduas Bridge, and help with flooding issues the area has had in the past.

About $3 million will be invested into the Shary Village Industrial Park, which was made possible through a grant from the U.S. Economic Development Agency. The Mission EDC is overseeing those grant funds. The federal funds will pay for electricity, water and roadways to attract future investors into the area located on Mission’s south side; one of the investors is Killam Development.

Phase one of the residential and commercial retail subdivision that will be built west of Anzaldua and north of Los Indios Parkway, also known as El Milagro, is also afoot. The new subdivision will have 433 residential lots, with 333 to be single-family and 100 to be multifamily/townhomes, Silva said. The retail commercial property will consist of about 500,000 sq ft. Killam will start the process of going out for construction company bids in the next few weeks.

At the March 23 Mission Redevelopment Authority meeting, Killam’s Real Estate Manager Dr. Rolando Ortiz presented the status of the project. Based on the charrettes conducted with the Mission community, he said Killam is looking forward to making El Milagro “as walkable and bikeable as possible so the neighborhoods can interact with each other,” as well as environmentally friendly.

“We’re going to be working on what we’re calling the El Milagro Boardwalk that will take you from Los Indios all the way to the Mission inlet, west of Anzalduas,” Ortiz said. “Having that area kind of open with some water ponds and kind of a boardwalk so people can walk up and down that area. So those are the kind of things we’re looking at.”

Ortiz said the boardwalk will ideally be a mix-use development with units such as barbershops, nail salons and bodegas so residents will have many amenities in their area. In the past, Killam has said they understand the border area and culture of the Rio Grande Valley, and MEDC’s Silva assures the feedback Killam received from the community is being taken to heart.

“They don’t plan on incorporating their own city,” Silva said, comparing El Milagro to the situation the City of Brownsville is in with Elon Musk’s supposed Starbase, Texas. “As [Killam] did with their charrettes, they went out to the public and asked for their input and that’s really what helped them sculpt the community that they’re building. All the different sectors across Mission, they’ve asked for input. They definitely want to be an asset to the community and not separate themselves from it.”

Silva said El Milagro will be structured similar to San Antonio’s Riverwalk with a waterway between the apartments and retail sites, which will serve as retention for stormwater. This helps solve the flooding issues the area has seen in the past following major storms.

“There’s been a lot of pent-up demand,” the MEDC CEO said. “There’s been a lot of waiting to see what happens with the property because over the last 10 years there really hasn’t been any activity on it. But I think over the next three to five years we’re going to definitely see a lot of construction, a lot of development and it will be exciting to see that part of Mission grow.”