The El Jardin Hotel Key to Revitalizing Downtown

After a five year absence, you come back to Brownsville and decide to go to downtown to check out what’s new. As you approach downtown from the 77/83 Expressway, you begin to notice something strange, thinking that you vision is somewhat blurry. You rub your eyes and take a look at downtown again but it’s still there. Or are you seeing double? As you get closer to downtown, you then realize that you’re not seeing things but instead, two El Jardin Hotels! One behind the other!

You arrive at downtown and immediately head over to the hotel on 12th St. When you reach Levee St, you see a site that downtown had been waiting see for a long time; the El Jardin Hotel renovated and as a plus, an exact twin right behind it. The Capitol Theater is finally under going renovations as had been proposed many years before. New businesses are sprouting up to reap in the profits of the 510 people living in the hotel. But wait a minute, who would live in a hotel? Well, by this time, it’s not a hotel but student housing for UTB/TSC! Students are walking to the campus and to ITEC (former Amigoland Mall and now part of UTB) via sidewalks that mirror the paseo on campus. The Village at El Jardin (as it could theoretically be called) is only 2 ½ blocks from campus and only six blocks from ITEC.

As you drive around the El Jardin and head on to Elizabeth St, you begin to see the extent of the revitalization that had happened since the El Jardin was renovated. HEB tore down the old building and rebuilt it into a much larger facility to handle the influx of not just the Mexican Nationals but the students living just blocks away. There’s also a Star Bucks, Hard Rock Café, The Gap, and other businesses that have begun to take advantage of the influx of students. Other historical buildings that have several floors or more are beginning to renovate the upper floors to accommodate the still growing university student population. By now, UTB has grown to 15,000 students and 17,000 including staff and faculty. The campus is now twice the size it was just five years back with new buildings sprouting along University Blvd. Tourism has increased as the majority of the students are out-of-town and foreign students living at the El Jardin and at the Village at Fort Brown at UTB. The Capitol Theater has now begun its renovation into a major performing arts theater that encompasses most of the block. Shock has now set into reality and you begin to think to yourself, how did all this happen in just five years? Vision. Someone saw an opportunity to turn the El Jardin into student housing and took a risk and paid off.

Of course, the above is just a taste of what could happen if the El Jardin Hotel is renovated. At this point in time, the El Jardin could only be profitable as student housing because of the growing university. It would not make money as apartments, or condos, or even as a hotel. The population is not there nor is the infrastructure such as a major grocery store, national retail stores, etc that people would want close to their home as opposed to students who would have no choice but the Village at Fort Brown, The El Jardin, or some far away apartment that would require you to drive a long distance to get to school.

Why is the El Jardin Hotel the key to revitalizing downtown? As I mentioned in my article below, it’s the chicken or the egg. What comes first, people or businesses. In my opinion, people must come first, but more specifically, students. As mentioned earlier, students need food, grocery stores, night clubs, hang out places, clothes, and so on. Downtown currently has all these things. Attracting people who live in the north part of Brownsville will not be easy because of the explosion of stores, restaurants, major retail stores, etc. Students are easier to attract because of their limited choices for housing, especially those that are not from here and would rather stay close to the university for security and ease of getting there. Students that are not from here generally have more money to spend with. If the university is going to hit 20,000 by 2015 or so, then the problem becomes with housing many of these students. Currently, there are about 250 rooms available at the UTB dorms. I don’t think that UTB will have the funding to build new dorms or be able to buy up all the condos in the peninsula and renovate existing structures in time to house these students. Students needing housing will find it elsewhere. This is why turning the El Jardin into dorms is of the utmost importance.

There was a company that had intentions of buying the El Jardin Hotel. They were going to renovate the existing structure and build an exact twin behind it with a beautiful plaza in the middle, a food court, and a first floor retail section. The combined space would be able to handle 510 students and staff! Five hundred students living in the downtown district ready to spend and help downtown flourish within a short few years. It was a magnificent report and drawings of the proposed student housing but unfortunately, UTB turned it down for whatever reason they may have had a few years ago. The company then decided to not buy the hotel and nothing came of it. Not the hundreds of students walking the streets of downtown, shopping, eating, or hanging out. No major retail stores to handle the influx of students or other owners turning their buildings into dorms. Just the same old downtown with the same people who are only attracted to the dollar stores and second hand stores.

Nothing will change until the El Jardin rises up from its grave. The El Jardin is the key and only hope of ever seeing downtown regaining its former glory. Till then, we can dream just like my dream at the beginning of this article.