DFW News App

Two major historic renovation/adaptive reuse projects are nearing completion in downtown Brownsville: the El Jardin Hotel at 1114 E. Levee St. and the Samano Building at 1158 E. Elizabeth Street.

The projects have faced delays for various reasons, including the pandemic, though now are in the home stretch.

The Housing Authority of the city of Brownsville (HACB) purchased the eight-story El Jardin in 2019 after identifying it as an affordable housing opportunity in 2015. The project was approved for $11.8 million in Housing Tax Credits through the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) in July 2021, with the groundbreaking planned for summer 2022 and completion expected by December 2023.

But then interest and insurance rates shot up, with the construction costs and the price tag of redeveloping El Jardin, which originally opened in 1927. Development cost rose from $18.5 million to $29.1 million. TDHCA gave the 2021 tax credit awardees the opportunity to apply for supplemental credits, which came through for the Brownsville Housing Opportunity Corporation (BHOC) — HACB’s nonprofit developer on the project — in February 2023.

BHOC likewise extended a $4.5 million gap loan in order to move the project forward, with groundbreaking finally taking place on Aug. 31, 2023. El Jardin also recently received a $2 million grant from the General Land Office. The total development cost is now $31.7 million, with the actual construction cost accounting for $21.9 million of the total.

Carla Mancha, HACB’s chief executive officer, said the project is 95% complete, tenants should begin moving in by November and the resurrected El Jardin should be fully occupied by year’s end.

“We will probably have the ribbon-cutting in the month of December,” she said.

The new El Jardin features 44 apartments: 16 one-bedroom, 19 two-bedroom and nine three-bedroom. About 11 families still living in HACB’s Victoria Gardens complex — also in line for total redevelopment — have first choice for an apartment, Mancha said.

“I will tell you that we have right now over 570 families on the El Jardin wait list,” she added, noting that the process of determining HUD eligibility for applicants begins soon.

Brownstone Residential Management will manage and staff the former hotel, Mancha said. The transformation of El Jardin, which sat boarded up, empty and neglected for decades, is profound.

“We have done our very best to ensure that we address the rehab of this building to be in compliance with the State Historic Preservation Office and the National Park Service, because it’s also receiving state and federal historic tax credits,” Mancha said.

Those agencies are very strict about maintaining the original look of restorations as much as possible, which contributed to delays, she said.

“It needs to have a very similar match to what it looked like back in 1927,” Mancha said. “It has been a bit of challenge with the process of the approvals of some of that material.”

Franklin Construction is the general contractor.

An extreme scarcity of labor due to ICE raids under the Trump administration has also created delays in getting the project to the finish line, she said, noting that in June only about 40% of workers were showing up on the job. Workers skilled in historic renovation have become especially hard to find, Mancha said.

“It’s been a journey,” she admitted.

Mancha predicted El Jardin’s rebirth, and that of the Samano, will positively transform downtown.

“Now we’re going to have families there,” she said. “Now instead of having a building vacant since the 1980s, now you’re going to have a building that’s alive. The housing authority will make sure that we have programs and projects and events there for our families.”

Nick Mitchell-Bennett, CEO of Come Dream Come Build (CDCB), which is undertaking the Samano Building renovation, said bringing back two long-vacant, iconic addresses is a big deal all by itself from an aesthetic standpoint.

“I think that that is really a shot in the arm for the entire city, to have two buildings of this size to be able to come back online,” he said. “Number two, with the city’s goal for a downtown renaissance, and in any town, downtowns don’t survive unless people are living there. I’m very glad that Carla and I were able to say we’re on board with that and we think low-income people need to be a part of that equation.”

The Samano, which opened as First National Bank in 1925, will provide housing for people who have been homeless or are at risk of becoming homeless in the near future, including veterans and 18 year olds transitioning out of state guardianship, Mitchell-Bennett said.

“The technical term is permanent supportive housing,” he said. “We’re partnering with other organizations that work with this population on a day-to-day basis.”

It’s the first housing of its type south of San Antonio, Mitchell-Bennett noted, adding that the Samano will house 40 residents, each with their own 250-square-foot apartment with a kitchenette, bathroom and sleeping area.

“Some folks have said we don’t need that downtown,” he said. “My response is, they’re sleeping on the street downtown. Would you rather have them in the building? That’s one of the things we’re trying to do.”

CDCB was ready to start construction when COVID hit, then everything had to be repriced because construction costs suddenly skyrocketed, Mitchell-Bennett said.

“It went from an $11 million deal to a $21 million deal through COVID,” he said.

Things had finally settled down enough a little over a year ago that the contracts could be signed and the Samano rehab launched “full throttle,” Mitchell-Bennett said. Even then, its status as a “federally approved historic project” slowed things down some, he said.

“It did add time and money but we got more equity, because we’re taking these federal tax credits,” Mitchell-Bennett said. “About 42%-43% of the total hard cost is being covered by tax credit equity. It was worth the wait.”

The credits helped close the gap in funding, and CDCB — which carries no outside debt on the project — went out and raised more money.

“When the final numbers came in we had a gap of about $7 million,” Mitchell-Bennett said. “The tax credits covered about half of that, and then HUD came in with some more.”

The Valley Baptist Legacy Foundation supplied additional funding on top of the $2.3 million it contributed in the beginning to jump-start the project. Also, the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation pledged $200,000 for a grocery store on the Samano’s bottom floor.

“I’ve always been a very very good fundraiser, and I had to get better,” Mitchell-Bennett said. “We covered it and we got it done. We’re super excited about it.”

Noble Texas, the general contractor, has worked wonders installing air conditioning, modern plumbing and “full digital capabilities” throughout the century-old structure while still maintaining the original look, he said.

Korner Market, a small local chain, will operate an expanded bodega concept with prepared food, fresh meats, fruits and vegetables, Mitchell-Bennett said. Having an actual grocery store downtown again — H-E-B shuttered its 60-year-old East Elizabeth Street store in 2019 — will help address another issue, he said.

“The downtown area is a food desert and we needed to elevate it out of that,” Mitchell-Bennett said. “I think people hesitate to live … downtown if there’s not someplace they can walk to to get tonight’s dinner. I think that’ll be another impact.”

CDCB’s goal is to start moving people into the Samano in mid-November, while a temporary certificate of occupancy permit will be issued for a grand opening/YouthBuild fundraiser at 7 p.m. on Oct. 2, he said.

The Samano and El Jardin projects may not satisfy every need downtown has, but they’ll definitely make a dent, Mitchell-Bennett said.

“We need middle-income to move downtown,” he said. “I totally agree with that. I have no problem with that. But Carla and I have the mandate to house low-income people, and Carla and I are able to raise the money to do that.”

The post Brownsville’s historic El Jardin Hotel, Samano Building projects nearing completion appeared first on MyRGV.com.