WESLACO, Texas - New houses and apartments are popping up so fast in Weslaco that planners in other communities in the Rio Grande Valley are calling to ask what is happening, says the city’s planning director.
Rebekah de la Fuente, director of planning and zoning for the City of Weslaco, spoke about the “overwhelming” growth during a visit by the Rio Grande Valley Partnership.
The RGV Partnership hosts monthly bus tours of Valley cities, inviting realtors and investors to see what land is available for development. The most recent visit was to Weslaco.
“So, over the last year we developed about 1,100 acres (for residential development),” de la Fuente told the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service, at the end of the bus tour.
“Right now, (this year) we are up to 1,400 and that does not include the ones that came in this morning.”
Asked what came in, this morning, de la Fuente said: “I have two residential developments and then I have an apartment development, the one I was talking about (earlier) that was developed back in 1974. They are going to go ahead and tear that down and we are going to remodel (it) into brand new apartments. That is really great because it took two years to get it funded.”
Asked how many new residential units that equates to, de la Fuente said: “So, for residential, we did 1,171 new units, which are single family lots, which came out to about 500 acres. And then for apartments, right now our number of units is at that 964. That does not include the ones that came in this morning, which should add about another 132.”
De la Fuente has worked in the City of Weslaco’s planning department for the past 14 years. She said it has only been in the past two years that the growth in residential development has really taken off.
“I thinks something is really happening now because I have been getting calls from other cities asking what we are doing to get these developments in,” de la Fuente said.
“What we are seeing in residential I have not seen up until 2019. I thought during 2020, with Covid, that we would see a dramatic decrease. But we didn’t. We actually saw more and more and more houses coming in, so it is just overwhelming, the amount.”
Asked what she tells other cities, when they call to ask what is happening in Weslaco, de la Fuente said: “I like to tell them that I think Weslaco is just the center everything. We have a good community. We are the biggest little city. So we still have that wonderful small-town mentality where everybody kind of knows everybody and everybody is willing to work with everybody.”
De la Fuente said she had a great mentor in former Weslaco City Manager Mike Perez. He recently retired.
“I had a great mentor in my previous city manager, Mike Perez, who taught me that being a planner wasn’t saying yes or no and following our laws, word for word. It is finding the grey areas and learning to make a deal and getting people in here and trying to accommodate them as quickly as we can.”
The Rio Grande Guardian International News Service also asked de la Fuente about the “over performing” restaurants Weslaco has. This question was promoted by a presentation made during the same RGVP tour by Craig Garansuay, of the brokerage firm Corporate Asset Partners.
“I knew that we had the best selling Dairy Queen in the country. And I know in the Valley we do have the best selling Little Caesars. And that is why we have already seen the one that went up on 1015 and we are seeing the next one on Westgate. They are coming in here. They are investing. They are seeing what we are doing and then it is just growing after that,” de la Fuente said.
One possible reason Weslaco restaurants are doing so well is because there are too few such establishments in the city, forcing local residents to dine at the same ones over and over again. Another explanation is Weslaco is a hub for residents from neighboring cities.
“When you look at our surrounding cities, you have Donna, you have Mercedes, Edcouch, Elsa, Progreso, they are all still small towns. So, everybody is coming to shop here, to eat here, to kind of live in Weslaco,” de la Fuente said.
During the RGVP tour, Weslaco Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Steve Valdez talked about an “undercount” of the population by the Census Bureau in 2020. The Census Bureau pegged Weslaco at just over 41,000. De la Fuente said she agreed with Valdez’s assessment.
“I believe we were grossly undercounted,” de la Fuente said. A more accurate count is 50,000 if not higher, she said.
“I see us continuing to grow to the north. And what I love about this right now… the state tried to prevent the city from growing by (stopping) annexations. But the city is still growing because we have developers who want to voluntarily come in to Weslaco. They want to be part of the community. They want what we have to offer. So, Weslaco is still growing despite that hindrance and I think that is wonderful.”
Asked if Weslaco’s growth is going largely undetected, de la Fuente said: “I don’t think people realize it until they are in Weslaco. I think they still think we are a small town. When people come down and visit and they see where we have grown, just within the past ten years… it really is growing.”
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