CITY OF BROWNSVILLE HOPES LATEST PLAN FOR CASA DEL NYLON WILL SOOTH BUYER'S REMORSE

Tent Set Up Outside Casa del Nylon

In another attempt to soothe the city's buyer's remorse at considerably overpaying a decade ago for Casa del Nylon at 1304 E. Adams Street, the BCIC held a "groundbreaking" in an outdoor tent today with a published start time of 10:00 AM.  We lingered until 10:30 with still no ground broken or words spoken.

No matter.  We'd read the announcement of the new eBridge Center for Business & Commercialization, a pretentious name to be sure with the lofty purpose of "creating conditions where women or minority-owned small businesses can start new ventures with an access to capital."

Literally, in Cameron County, that would mean money is available for women, whites, Asians and Blacks, since our city has a 90% Hispanic majority.

Not what the BCIC means?  Oh, if we're using the demographics for the State of Texas, Hispanics are projected to be the majority sometime during 2022, so there might be a mad scramble for "capital" until then from the current "minority" groups.

Actually, it would have been simply easier for the BCIC say:  "White men need not apply," for that was their obvious intention in using such a racist and sexist standard as "women or minority-owned businesses" only.  Pretty sloppy, guys!

Anyway, good luck with the renovation.  Watch out for La Casa del Nylon's second floor, which is only meant to be used as an attic and will not support desks, applicants or even a refrigerator for soft drinks and burritos.

The renovation will obviously not be free, adding to the $2,300,000 handed to Abraham Galonsky for the building in 2012, more than triple the building's appraised value of $635,000.

The City of Brownsville has been hard-pressed to do something with La Casa del Nylon since it bought the thing in 2012.

In June 2013 Mayor Tony Martinez came up with the hair-brained scheme of moving city departments from City Plaza to Casa del Nylon to make way for Juliet V. Garcia's University of the Americas.(Again and again, Tony Martinez demonstrated an unwholesome attachment to Juliet V. Garcia and the University of Texas System, one of the world's richest universities.  A couple years later lovesick Tony would try to unlawfully "convey" the city's beautiful, irreplaceable Lincoln Park to UT.)  

Then, at the August 5, 2014 City Commission meeting, an item was place on the agenda to put it up for sale:  

A) ACTION to authorize staff to list the real property on East Adams Street, between 13th and 14th Streets, for sale with a broker for a commission of no more than 5% of the sale price.

(Commissioners R. Longoria, Jr./J. Villarreal)

The cryptic language meant Casa del Nylon, the only building between east 13th and east 14th streets in the city.  That agenda item was tabled.

Later that year, Commissioner Jessica Tetreau tried to interest Michele from B.A.M.(Brownsville Artists and Musicians) in at least renting the Casa del Nylon for "concerts and such," but no agreement was reached.

In 2017 a plan was announced to make Casa del Nylon a Fire Training Facility, saving the city the cost of sending it's newly hired fireman to outside training seminars, footing the transportation and housing during such training.  That idea, like those before it, fell through.

Newly hired City Manager Noel Bernal announced in December 2018 that Casa del Nylon would be converted to a "one stop shop" for new business owners with an additional office to facilitate Mexican Nationals getting green cards.

In February 2019, BCIC Director Josh Mejia approached the City Commission to announce that "25 entities" had agreed to occupy the old building to create some the "one stop center" mentioned earlier by Bernal.  When Commissioner Rick Longoria asked if any of these "entities" were going to pay rent, Mejia admitted that "hadn't been discussed."

Given the history of the city's efforts to utilize La Casa del Nylon, taxpayer cynicism is understandable.