MCALLEN, Texas - Ralph Garcia, interim chief operating officer for McAllen Economic Development Corporation, has given a brief update on the various projects the group is working on. 

“Right now, the EDC is working with about 25 active projects. This represents a total of about three million square feet of space. Estimated jobs are about 8,000 and the economic impact of that is roughly about $5 billion dollars,” Garcia said a quarterly stakeholders meeting.

“Primarily, our companies are coming from France, Sweden, Mexico, the US and Japan. Those are the activities that we're seeing right now.”

Garcia said McAllen EDC has secured two new leads during the current quarter, along with 23 existing prospects.

"We also continue to work on state leads. Most of what we're seeing coming through, the focus is on manufacturing and, of course, distribution and logistics. Those are projects that we continue to work with.”

Garcia said the MEDC team working on active projects includes Susie Flores in McAllen and Rafael Angel Ortiz Salazar in Reynosa. 

“And, of course, we continue to do BRE (business retention and expansion) visits with a lot of our existing business, both in McAllen and Reynosa. We find that most of the leads that we're generating right now are through a BRE visit, where we're learning of current projects that companies are looking at.”

Garcia said quite a few of those expansion projects involve South America.

“We’re trying to leverage those projects, to look at Texas as an alternative option. One of the advantages that we have is our low cost, so that helps us. But, we're always trying to get in front of those projects, versus them leaving the area completely.”

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