The OrigoWorks portfolio is an extensive one.

The Brownsville-based company got its start as a design-oriented firm. Origo today has the capabilities to offer turnkey projects to its clients. The firm over the years has expanded to include construction, sales and marketing, and property and asset management to the services it offers.

Origo headquarter offices are housed in what was once an Edelstein’s Furniture warehouse along railroad tracks that are now a part of Brownsville’s network of hike-and-bike trails. The stylish conversion of an old warehouse fits nicely into the Origo story. The company’s founders – Javier Huerta and Carlos Varela – are Brownsville natives who left their hometown to attend college and start their professional careers elsewhere.

In the early 2000s, Varela pitched Huerta with the vision of returning home to start a new company that could utilize what they had learned in Austin and San Antonio.

“Let’s start something in Brownsville,” Huerta said of the proposal he heard over 20 years ago. “The idea was to come back and have a community impact in our region.”

Introducing New Ideas

Huerta is an architect by training and work experience.

His career in architecture flourished in working for a large San Antonio-based firm after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin. Returning home to help start a company from scratch meant designing custom homes and office buildings. Huerta was influenced by projects that he did in San Antonio and Central Texas whose designs were “industrial with the hint of modern.” 

The goal was to build new buildings and homes that had a timeless look to them and didn’t look recently developed. Origo’s designs are distinctive in how they utilize stone, metal and windows and at times feature the gable roof style where two sides slope down to form triangles at each end.   

“We brought down some new ideas and tried to apply them here in fitting them to the Valley’s culture,” Huerta said. “People would tell us, ‘you guys are doing the kind of work and designs we see in San Antonio and Austin.”

With its expanded portfolio, Origo began developing real estate projects with an emphasis on retail and restaurants. One of its early significant projects was Morrison Plaza on Pablo Kisel Boulevard in Brownsville. It would feature a design look that would be largely replicated in other Valley projects such as Stuart Place Crossing in Harlingen. These two projects feature well-known restaurant brands like Johnny Rockets and Tropical Smoothie Café.

Both the Morrison and Stuart Place developments successfully tapped into the growth corridors of Brownsville and Harlingen, and demonstrated that Origo’s real estate instincts and market studies were on the mark.

“You can get a gut feeling about a piece of land,” Huerta said of scouting development possibilities. “The most important thing to determine is ‘would I want to live here. Would I want to work here?’ ’’

Making An Impact

The growth and successes of Origo has extended the firm’s reach to projects in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and to Boerne in the Texas Hill Country. 

One of its major projects came to completion in early 2019 when the Origo-designed corporate headquarters of Texas Regional Bank opened in Harlingen. The bank tower is located on the western end of the Morrison Plaza project that Origo designed and still manages. Huerta says his company’s ongoing association with Texas Regional is an example of “making sure you’re with the right partners.”

Those partnerships have served Origo well in developing projects across the Valley, including retail and restaurant plazas in Edinburg, Pharr, San Benito and South Padre Island. It is also on the Island where Origo helped to design and develop The Shores Villas, which are upscale homes on SPI’s bayside.

In its hometown, Origo is heavily invested in historical sites like its design and development of the El Jardin Hotel in downtown Brownsville and its revival of Palm Village, which was one of the city’s first shopping centers in the 1960s. It all adds up to the wise decision by Origo’s founders to return home and make a difference. 

“We can look back and see what we’ve done and the impact we have made in our community and the market,” Huerta said.