Business View Civil and Municipal | January 2021

37 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL JANUARY 2021 SAN BENI TO, TEXAS Living in a part of the country where temperatures are pleasant almost year-round, you can’t do better than San Benito for outdoor recreation. The weather in the Rio Grande Valley – a floodplain that drains into the Rio Grande – easily lends itself to what Bernard Rodriguez, the City’s Planning and Development Director, describes as ‘active tourism’. He notes, “We offer parks along the resaca that are joined by a walking trail. Whether you’re walking, running, cycling, or strolling with your kids, it’s always open and in use. Throughout the Valley, birdwatching-ecotourism is another huge amenity that we’re offering. The City of San Benito is developing, in stages, an evolving wetlands combined with a water purification ecosystem. The wetlands provide a pristine habitat for various plant and animal species. We’re hoping to become a major player in the ecotourism market.” The COVID-19 pandemic prompted the City Commission to “sit down and re-evaluate” what sustainable plans for economic development would look like for San Benito moving forward. “We’ve been fortunate,” Rodriguez admits. “The projects we’d lined up prior to the pandemic are still moving ahead. Resaca Village is now the most desirable retail center in San Benito. If you can just envision this: the front doors of the business leading out to your standard parking lot, and the back doors opening out to a patio with a walking trail along the resaca. With COVID-19, we need public spaces that lend themselves to not being enclosed. This outdoor seating area is an amenity that will invite people to come into Resaca Village, and that’s good. That’s our objective. We want to be a destination point.” Despite stay-at-home mandates and other community-wide setbacks, renovations to the San Benito Cultural Arts Center – a building formerly leased to the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center – are still advancing as planned. “We’re continuing to work on economic engines for the City,” says De La Rosa. He drops mention of a cultural district that’s being developed that will showcase the city’s rich history as a 1900s-era agricultural hub, and feature the new San Benito Cultural Heritage Center, the Community Building, as well as the old public library. “We’re primarily a suburban community, and if we don’t have an industry that’s creating a revenue stream, that means we’re burdening our taxpayers with improvements,” adds De La Rosa. “But if we can build platforms for either ecotourism, cultural tourism, or hotel and convention business, and create hospitality-type jobs, we’ll be improving the quality of life here for everybody.” Ultimately, De La Rosa wants to help move skilled workers out of the fast-food industry, and into longer-term, more sustainable local jobs. San Benito is situated in Cameron County, one of the most disadvantaged counties in the U.S. Thirty-seven percent of their population – and the number holds the same in the County – is either at or below the poverty level. And City Manager, Manuel De La Rosa