Jason Martinez’s career in retailing was taking off in the early 2000s as the Mercedes native returned to the Rio Grande Valley with the recent opening of a Foley’s department store at La Plaza Mall. The McAllen mall went into another gear in that era after landing a big department store from a renowned regional chain with Houston roots. It was in those years that Martinez graduated with a business…
Reynaldo Avila was nothing if persistent and so was his cause to find a proper home for a vast collection of conjunto music memorabilia. Avila toiled for over two decades to locate a permanent home for the Conjunto Music Hall of Fame & Museum. In the 2010s, the museum was shoehorned into a 650-square-foot space in a San Benito city-owned building shared with other historical collections. Avila was promised that…
The first launch of SpaceX’s Starship off Boca Chica Beach was spectacular even as it fell short of its goals and ultimately blew to pieces over the Gulf of Mexico. Some of the debris from the sky and launch pad would fall and settle over Port Isabel, causing consternation there to go with stern words from the Federal Aviation Administration. The agency said it would review safety and public health…
The chief executive officer of a major San Antonio development company referred to Weslaco in late 2021 as a “community that has been underserved.” Craig Garansuay offered that description during a Weslaco City Hall meeting as local leaders were making their pitch to business interests gathered to learn more about the community. Weslaco at the time was seeing its first signs of new retail and housing construction growth coming out…
From bean to bar, there can be no rushing the in-between at Hidalgo’s Mozna Chocolate factory. Rosario Matulewicz and her team work meticulously at their craft in what was once a meat market. Today, large sacks of cacao beans from around the world stand near a grinder that whirls around the clock. It’s a days-long process. The beans will soon form into a thick batter-like substance to temper and mold…
There was always one skill Ryan Henry had in his back pocket as he saw his journalism fade like a setting sun in one of his paintings. The Rio Grande Valley-area newspapers that Henry so capably served for over two decades have clearly seen their better days. There was no lessening of his own interests and commitment to newspapering, but Henry grew tired of years-long struggles as an editor in…
Ramiro Aleman picked up on a key element missing in San Benito when he was recently named executive director of the city’s economic development corporation. “There was no presence of UTRGV in San Benito,” Aleman recalled thinking when starting his new job last fall. “How can we change that?” On March 30, Aleman and his board welcomed UTRGV’s Office of Workforce and Economic Development to San Benito. The start of…
The view from the levee separating the 200-acre Llano Grande Resort from its 18-hole golf course is worthy of stopping for a moment to take in. It’s the expanse of what’s essentially a small town within Mercedes’ city limits. The resort has over 1,100 spaces where its 2,000-plus residents reside in homes, cottages, apartments, mobile homes and RVs. Llano Grande recently celebrated its 50th anniversary in Mercedes and is nestled…
The development of open spaces along Expressway 83 between Pharr and Harlingen is accelerating as developers look to fill gaps and bring brand names in retailing and restaurants to smaller communities. Cities like Donna and Mercedes were formerly excluded from the Rio Grande Valley’s rapid growth of the last two decades. The same was once the case for San Juan. In the early 2000s, San Juan was a community that…
Anna Gomez and Deborah Rios were the best of friends before deciding to become business partners. Friendship and business don’t always mix but this is a partnership that works. Gomez is a banker by profession and manages a branch bank in north McAllen. Rios is a teacher in Edinburg who co-owns a business with her husband. They had previously bandied about the idea of someday going into business together. For…