This came in from Helen Marshall:
Take a drive to Mesa and Shadow Mountain, where the new 22-storey building with “ 228 luxury apartments and 219 luxury hotel rooms” will be built, with 715 parking spaces. The City Plan Commission (or rather, the City “Plan” Commission) approved it unanimously despite recommendations from the city plan department itself to reduce the height.
City Council must now approve the rezoning. Let’s guess what will happen. An article in El Paso Inc (http://www.elpasoinc.com/news/local_news/article_facf2acc-0b05-11e6-94b3-63ffc7cf05c4.html) describes developer Stuart Meyers’ connections in El Paso – one of his wife’s sisters is Dori Fenenbock, the EPISD president and another sister is wife of prominent local lawyer Mchael Gopin. His mother-in-law was the wife of bootmaker Tony Lama. Meyers is a long-time friend of Jerry Rubin, Meyer Marcus (chair of Mimco) and Mayor Oscar Leeser. Hmmm…Only those who live within 300 feet of the new building, which is a handful of people on the other side of Shadow Mountain, were notified of the plans in advance and given the opportunity to raise questions, resulting in very few questions.
Leaving aside the puzzling question of what the demand for luxury housing and luxury hotel rooms at Mesa and Shadow Mountain might be (anyone?) let’s consider the implications of those 715 parking spaces. Presentations about this structure have said it will have no impact on traffic, as it is near the “rapid transit” on Mesa! For example, the project is in District 8, whose egregious city representative, Cortney Niland, is quoted as saying that “By placing the bus rapid transit on Mesa, we really hoped to encourage new retail, new housing and new development….we’ve seen it’s working.”
What is the traffic load on Mesa? Can anyone produce a recent traffic survey??? What will the traffic be like when the Drafthouse opens, and more houses above it, and the Aldea development is built? Given the terrain and the existing buidlings/malls/etc along Mesa, it cannot be expanded. Meantime a search of Sun Metro bus schedules stilll shows nothing leaving downtown for the westside after 8:15 pm; the Brio system stops at 6 p.m on Saturday and does not run on Sunday. Can someone explain how the hundreds of occupants of this building will get around town? Will they take the bus to get their groceries at Whole Foods, and/or walk across the street to shop at Goodwill? Anyone want to bet they won’t be using their cars?
While it is nice to contemplate the jobs and spending that this project will produce, for a while, it is hard to see how this will work out positively in the long run…but then I am not a developer, so maybe I just don’t have the insider info I need.
elpasospeak 
If this exact same tower was built on the east side, West side residents would be crying aobut how the east side gets everything. Get over it and grow up. This is why we dont get nice things in El Paso…we complain about everything new and then cant figure out when big ass project like this are cancelled and moved to other cities.
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Build it on the East side…OK by me
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I agree with the Dawg. I call it growing pains. Projects like these help turn the property tax burden away from the homeowner, as long as the city doesn’t start giving them our property taxes.
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When was the last time the city DIDN’T give a developer a tax break.
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“Whah whah whah.. El Paso doesn’t get anything…we are orphans!”
“Here El Paso, here is a nice thing”
El Paso “I don’t want it.” Whah Whah Whah…
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I live in the area and I think 22 stories is overkill by twice. Otherwise it is OK by me. That land is ripe for development as we’re not talking wilderness preservation here. Maybe they can weave a bus stop into its lobby?
Be thankful it’s not another HACEP project on our doorstep.
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Good lord! It’s not like they are building a mega skyscraper there. It’s a relatively small building only 22 stories high! El Paso reminds me of Andy Griffith’s Mayberry.
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With connections like that why go through the formalities, it’s a done deal.
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Has any of the “plan commission” driven up or down Shadow Mountain between the hours of 0500 to 0900 and 4pm to 630pm. then they might like to reconsider. This might bee a good time to open the road between the two Stanton streets.
Bad Bud
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