June 25, 2009 - 9:45 PM
Multimillion museum expansion

By FERNANDO DEL VALLE/Valley Morning Star

SAN BENITO - Consultants are leaning toward construction of a multimillion-dollar expansion of three museums that showcase the city's cultural heritage, members of a committee said Thursday.

Massachusetts-based ConsultEcon has narrowed possible sites to the Heavin Resaca Trail and areas near the city's old high school and the community building that currently houses the city's three museums, the committee of museum founders said.

"We're talking about a multimillion-dollar facility," said Robert Brais, vice president of ConsultEcon, the consulting firm that the city hired in February. "We think if it's done it should be done with enough scale to draw from the Valley."

Brais said he will present city officials with a preliminary proposal in July.

The U.S. Economic Development Administration gave a $150,000 grant that the city's Economic Development Corp. matched with $50,000 to pay the consultants, Martha McClain, the city's community affairs director, said.

The city's EDC has earmarked $1.4 million to expand the San Benito History Museum, the Freddy Fender Museum and the Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame and Museum, she said.

The consultants will propose the development of a cultural center that would be "representative" of the Texas-Mexico border, Brais said.

"We have something historically and culturally relevant. Now we have to find out how to package it, how to sell it and how to make it a tourist destination," Ron Rogers, founder of the Freddy Fender Museum, said.

"The consensus is that we have a regional theme of cultural heritage. Anywhere there's an international border, there's a crossing of cultures and the fusion is what makes us. We draw from the richness from both cultures," Rogers said of the Anglo and Mexican-American cultures.

The consultants are proposing a "border culture center" that would house the museums, McClain said.

"They're assessing the viability of using cultural heritage as a means of economic development," McClain said.

The consultants targeted the resaca trail as a possible site for the center, San Benito Historical Society president Tootie Madden said.

"We might as well piggy back on something that's growing in popularity," Madden said of the walking trail that's become a favorite spot for residents.

The consultants ruled out several historic buildings as possible sites, said Rey Avila, founder of the Conjunto Music Hall of Fame.

Renovation of the old high school off Dick Dowling Street would make the project too costly, Avila said.

Consultants found the Aztec building off Robertson Street too narrow to house the museums and the Cameron County-owned Aguirre building lacks parking space, he said.

ConsultEcon, a firm that specializes in work on museums and visitors centers, put together a team of experts with strong Texas ties for the four-month study, Rogers said.

The team includes Sherry Kafka Wagner, a founding editor of Texas Monthly magazine who helped develop San Antonio's Hemisfair Park and the PBS series "Austin City Limits."

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Article taken from Valley Morning Star on June 26, 2009