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March 29, 2018 • Local News

El Paso Times: Southwest University Park brings 'buzz,' but not magic wand for Downtown revitalization

El Paso’s 34-year-old City Hall came crashing down five years ago to a mixture of cheers and some jeers.

The 10-story building — viewed by many El Pasoans as an ugly, yet serviceable city government headquarters — was razed and replaced by the sparkling $78 million, 7,500-seat minor league baseball stadium bearing the name of Southwest University, a small El Paso career college that paid for the ballpark naming rights.

The plan to tear down City Hall and put up the baseball stadium brought support from many El Paso community leaders, who saw it as an economic development tool that would help revitalize Downtown.

But it also drew opposition, including lawsuits, from some people who accused City Council of shoving a tax-supported stadium down tax-burdened El Pasoans’ throats.

Those' mixed emotions on the stadium were on display in Molly and Louis Couder's home.

"I didn't support it. I figured our taxes would go up," Molly Couder, 36, said as the Couders and their two young children headed to the Chihuahuas' March 26 exhibition game against the San Diego Padres, the El Paso team's Major League Baseball parent club.

Louis Couder, 36, an El Paso native, and firm supporter of building the stadium, said Downtown didn’t have much when he was growing up.

"This brought something new to get people Downtown," he said. 

Is the stadium Downtown's Macy's?

The Chihuahuas have drawn more than 2 million people to the stadium in four seasons.

More: El Paso shows up to watch MLB's Padres play the Chihuahuas

The stadium is squeezed onto about five acres between Santa Fe and Durango streets, and next to the Downtown convention center.

When it opened in 2014, the stadium was named best new Ballpark of the Year by Baseballparks.com, whose reviewer labeled it a masterpiece.

The plan to replace the City Hall and the 21-year-old Insights Science Museum with a ballpark was hatched by the El Paso Chihuahuas owners, who said they needed a Downtown stadium so they could buy the Tucson Padres, a Triple-A minor league baseball team, and move the team to El Paso.

The club's owners include well-known businessmen Paul Foster, who is working on a $78 million renovation that would convert Downtown's historic Plaza Hotel into a boutique hotel, and Woody Hunt, whose Hunt Companies and El Paso's WestStar Bank plan to build a $70 million office building Downtown. Both projects are scheduled to get substantial city tax subsidies.

Jessica Herrera, the city’s Economic and International Development Department director, has no doubts the stadium has boosted Downtown revitalization.

It also has become an important tool for recruiting companies to El Paso, as area leaders use the ballpark to entertain representatives of companies being courted to move to El Paso, she said.

Herrera said the ballpark is an anchor that acts as a catalyst for Downtown redevelopment. 

“It's like the big-box stores in a mall. The ballpark is Downtown's Macy's or Dillard's," Herrera said. 

Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of public and private development have taken place Downtown since Southwest University Park opened in April 2014, Herrera said. That includes dozens of projects slated to receive millions of dollars in city and state tax subsidies.

Five new hotels are in the works, and Hotel Indigo opened two years ago; six apartment buildings have opened in the last two years, and another is just beginning construction in the historic Blue Flame building.

Some new businesses and projects were sparked by the stadium. But several projects, including some of the biggest ones, were not, developers said.

A smattering of restaurants and bars have opened since the stadium began operating in April 2014, but many others have closed.

“It (stadium) is awesome for the city. We need more stuff like it," said Danny Avalos, 29, as he and his girlfriend headed to the recent Chihuahuas-Padres game.

But Avalos said he's disappointed that he hasn't seen more businesses sprout up Downtown.

"We need more stuff here. We need more restaurants, more entertainment (venues),” Avalos said.

The city's Herrera said while the ballpark is an important Downtown anchor, it's not the only thing pushing Downtown redevelopment.

“The message needs to get out that it’s not just the ballpark. Everything is creating synergy Downtown – hotels, apartments, museums, the (upcoming) trolley,” she said.

“When you walk through Downtown, there’s a very different vibe; people are excited about Downtown. The ballpark has created a lot of that buzz,” she said.

Louis Cordova, owner of The Fainting Goat Kitchen and Bar, near the corner of Durango Street and San Antonio Avenue, within a long baseball throw from the stadium, agreed the ballpark “adds a little vibe, a little spark” to Downtown.

“During baseball season, it (business) is fantastic,” he said as his bar bustled with customers prior to the Chihuahuas-Padres game.

But Cordova said, "Winter is tough," and his business survives the baseball off-seaon by catering holiday parties and graduations, he said.

The baseball stadium is the main reason Cordova opened The Fainting Goat in April 2017, where two other bar/restaurants had failed, he said. 

El Paso businessman Renard Johnson also said the stadium is the reason he built the 14-unit, $1.2 million Franklin Ave. Apartments, just down the street from the ballpark.

The apartments opened in February and three apartments had been leased by early March, he said.

"It (stadium) was a catalyst for me. I don't think I would have did that if the ballpark was not there," Johnson said.  

Tax breaks help spark big projects

Another businessman, Stuart Meyers, CEO of the Meyers Group, a Miami-based property developer, said the stadium played no part in his company's decision to buy the 356-room Hotel Paso Del Norte. A  $70 million renovation of the hotel is underway.

"The reason we are doing it is because the opportunity was there, and we were able to put a deal together to buy it," Meyers said. "And we felt it is a cornerstone of resuscitation of Downtown. It's a convention hotel."

The almost $31 million in state and city tax incentives and city grants for the project were important for the redevelopment to be done, Meyers said. 

The stadium is not the reason most people stay at the hotel, Scherr said. But when they see the stadium, and see they can walk across the street to a game, or walk to San Jacinto Plaza, "it's a wonderful surprise," and enhances their stay, Scherr said.

Joe Gudenrath, executive director of the Downtown Management District, said the baseball stadium is important for Downtown revitalization. But, he added, a Downtown business won't flourish just because of the stadium, or because of any other venue in the area.

"You look at the opportunity to attract people to your business. You still have to work to get that customer," Gudenrath said.

"I really have a tough time seeing thousands of potential customers being in the area (for Chihuahuas home games) as a negative," he said.

The stadium will have 70 games this baseball season, and that number will be greater beginning in spring 2019 when the Chihuahuas' owner, MountainStar Sports Group, puts its new United Soccer minor league team in the same stadium for at least a year.

More: Iconic Downtown El Paso Plaza building to be reborn as 131-room boutique hotel

Cordova, The Fainting Goat owner, whose family for more than 50 years operated the now-closed Belle Napoli Italian restaurant in West El Paso, said social marketing targeting El Pasoans in their 30s and 40s, and their families, has helped draw customers.

But the baseball games are what brings most customers to the bar in the Union Plaza District, he said. Next year's soccer games will help even more, he said.

"Whenever there's a baseball game, this is where we (a group of eight to 10 friends) warm up," said Fred Arellano, an El Paso nurse practioner, as he stood on The Fainting Goat's patio before the Chihuahuas' March 26 game with the San Diego Padres.

"This is one of the best things to happen to El Paso," Arellano said as he pointed to the stadium, just up the street.

Justin Ordonez, co-owner of Deadbeach Brewery, at 406 Durango St., near The Fainting Goat, said the stadium brings in new customers to the brewery's bar.

But the ballpark isn't the reason he and his partners selected the Union Plaza District location, which opened in November 2015, he said.

"We wanted to be in the heart of El Paso. It took us a year to find a building, and this building checked off all the boxes we wanted to check off," he said.

More: USL soccer team will play at Southwest University Park in 2019

The Deadbeach bar initially was open several nights a week, including when the Chihuahuas had home games, Ordonez said. But now, it's open only Fridays and Saturdays, he said.

"We got to the point where we decided to be a brewery more than a bar," Ordonez said. "We have 90 accounts all over town." That makes it one of the largest craft breweries in El Paso, he said.

The Union Plaza District, in the shadow of the stadium, has not boomed because of the stadium. Bars and restaurants have come and gone in a sort of revolving door.

That's more of an indictment of the restaurant and bar business, which is a difficult one to be successful, than it is of the Union Plaza District, or the stadium's drawing power, Ordonez said.

Stadium finances still a concern

The Fainting Goat's Cordova said Downtown isn't an easy place to survive, especially in recent years, he said, as construction of the trolley system, reconstruction of San Jacinto Plaza, and other projects made getting around Downtown difficult.

"Too many places have shut down. A lot of bars and nightclubs went to the East Side, where the population is," Cordova said.

"I think people are still waiting to see what happens with the (proposed) arena" before making a decision about investing in Downtown, he said.

El Paso voters in 2012, approved bonds to build a multipurpose arena. But lawsuits tied to groups fighting to preserve the proposed location in the so-called Duranguito neighborhood within the Union Plaza District have stalled the city's plans.

Danny Avalos, the Chihuahuas fan and stadium backer, said he hopes the arena gets built in the proposed location.

“It (stadium) is awesome for the city. We need more stuff like it," Avalos said.

The city is using tax incentives and grants to encourage developers to do Downtown projects.

Almost $89 million in city and state tax subsidies are slated to be given over several years for 25 Downtown projects, most of those coming after the stadium was under construction, according to city data.

Those projects are projected to bring more than $269 million in private investment Downtown, according to the data.

The stadium's debt will continue to be repaid largely by a special tax on hotel stays in El Paso. Voters in 2012, approved a 2 percent hotel tax to finance the stadium's construction costs.

El Pasoan Molly Couder voted against the special hotel tax because of her fear the stadium will increase other taxes, while her husband, Louis Couder, a staunch stadium supporter, voted for the hotel tax.

"I was against coming to games," Molly Couder said.

But the baseball fan in her finally gave in, and she consented to begin going to games in 2015, the Chihuahuas' second season.

"It's a lot of fun," she said as she and her family made their way into Southwest University Park for the recent Chihuahuas-Padres game.

But even as Molly Couder enjoys going to the Chihuahuas' games, and concedes that the stadium appears to be drawing more investment Downtown, she said she's still unsure if building the stadium was the right move for the city.

“It cost too much,” she said. “I’m still wary it will raise my taxes one way or another.”

Source: https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2018/03/29/chihuahuas-southwest-university-park-downtown-revitalization-el-paso-milb/432482002/