New year promises changes for Harlingen

HARLINGEN — The new year is opening with the promise of exciting changes for the residents of Harlingen.
Education, business and crime fighting all are moving in new directions in 2012. Construction on schools and other buildings for children’s activities are either under way or soon will be; business leaders are mining prospects for expanding on the success of Bass Pro Shops; and the police department is in the midst of a makeover.

Education
Residents will begin to see the fruits of a $98.6 million bond issue that voters passed in 2010 for the Harlingen Consolidated Independent School District. And when the district reopens its doors to students in 2012, a host of projects funded through those bonds will be in full swing.
Included in that is the new Memorial Middle School, the Ninth Grade Academy, a 1,200-seat performing arts center, a new aquatic center, an agriculture building and improvements to Boggus Stadium.
While many projects break ground in 2012, one is more than half completed already.
The new Memorial Middle School will open in fall of 2012 and the old one will be used for administrative purposes.
Construction is now under way on Rio Hondo Road near Morgan Boulevard.
Then there’s the new performing arts center. Superintendent Steve Flores said the district will break ground for it in late spring or early summer of 2012. It will be located next to Gutierrez Middle School on Wilson Road.
“It will be a performing arts venue that our students and community can take great pride in,” Flores said. “We’ve had to, for purposes of competition in UIL (University Interscholastic League), we had to go to other districts.
“And now with that performing arts center, we’ll have, in my opinion, some of the best talent here in the Harlingen Consolidated Independent School District, and our students will be able to participate and take great pride in that.”
Recently, the grass at Boggus Stadium was sold to make way for artificial turf.
“Right now, the track is being torn up,” Flores said. “There will be new track and turf, as well as new east side renovations.
“It is our hope to have the track and the turf installed prior to graduation in May, but the renovations to the east side will take a little longer.”
The renovations are part of the Boggus Stadium-13th Street Master Plan.
“That 13th Street site will be repurposed. It will be more appealing,” Flores said. “It’s been kind of an eyesore and now we’ll be able to make that something we can all be proud of, as far as the stadium goes.”
But that’s not all.
“And then we are beginning discussions and designs of the aquatic center,” he said.
The district currently pays the city $120,000 a year to use Pendleton Park’s swimming pool.
Construction on an agricultural building will also launch in 2012.
“We break ground on that later this spring,” Flores said. “That will be off of Cragon Road and Primera, and will give our students ample room and the facilities that they have been lacking for so many years.”
The district will also break ground in 2012 on the Ninth Grade Academy, which should ease crowding in Harlingen’s high schools and provide real-world, project-based learning for freshmen that will put them on the right track toward college.
“What we know to be true is that credit accumulation (for high school students) is critical,” Flores said. “It’s about credit accumulation and what we want to do is make sure we have success for our students. And the ninth grade year becomes an impetus for success.”
The Ninth Grade Academy will open in the fall of 2013.
So 2012 is a huge year for HCISD that will exhibit tangible progress resulting from 2010’s $98.6 million bond issue. Through a grant, the state covered half, or roughly $49.3 million.
“We are looking forward to an exciting 2012. And 2011 has been a good year, but we look forward to the future with great hope,” Flores said. “We want to continue being the champions in academics, arts and athletics and we’re proud of where we’ve been and we are proud of what the future holds in 2012.”

Business
As 2011 came to a close, the long-awaited and much anticipated Bass Pro Shops opened its doors in Harlingen.
But the work is not done, and while thousands of people have already filtered through the rustic-looking outdoor mega-store, there’s more development to come — particularly on pad sites on two plots of land near Bass Pro, business leaders say.
“The Economic Development Corporation owns the Bass Pro site,” said EDC CEO Bill Martin. “But the property around Bass Pro, there’s another 40 acres on the south side of the spur and another 50 acres designated for retail development.
“That’s owned by private developers and they’ve been negotiating heavily with potential users.”
Martin said he’s very optimistic about that land’s use.
“We think Bass Pro will have some neighbors soon,” he said.
A host of pad sites line the area around Bass Pro Shops and the EDC has wasted no time in promoting them.
“There’s been a tremendous amount of interest in the pad sites around Bass Pro Shops and the Economic Development Corporation exhibited at a recent trade show held by the International Council of Shopping Centers, where it was obvious that our Bass Pro destination retail store is very attractive to a lot of companies,” Martin said.
Restaurants, hotels and retail stores have expressed the most interest, he said.
And while some of the land is owned by private developers, Martin said they have been busy working toward bringing businesses in to those locations.
“They’ve been negotiating heavily with potential users,” he said.
The fact that Bass Pro Shops is a destination retail store, with its mass array of outdoor goods, an indoor bowling alley, a restaurant, games and gift shop, it attracts people from all around, he said.
“The special thing about Bass Pro is it is a destination retail store,” he said. “An average store draws 3 million visitors in a 150-mile radius. Before Bass Pro, they weren’t coming to Harlingen to shop.”
In this region, those numbers include visitors from Mexico.
So Phase 1 is off to a strong start, business leaders say. And Martin said developers are actively marketing phase two, which consists of 50 acres north of the spur that will be developed.
“You know, the Chucky Cheese that has been announced in Harlingen Corners is a direct result of Bass Pro,” he said. “And there’s another major retailer that is looking.
“You’re going to see all kinds of new activity in that whole area, not just Cameron Crossing, but in the mall and Harlingen Corners.”
Mayor Chris Boswell echoed Martin’s sentiments.
“I’m very optimistic that we are going to see significant development and announcement of significant development around 2012,” he said. “And one of those announcements might come before the end of the first quarter.”

Crime Fighting
For 2012, the goal of the Harlingen Police Department is to be the safest city in the Rio Grande Valley, Police Chief Tom Whitten said.
Whitten, who joined the department just six months ago, has already implemented some changes within the department and has made it his mission to focus on community and team policing and transparency with the residents of Harlingen.
“If citizens are more aware about what’s going on around them, then they are less likely to become victims,” Whitten said.
Whitten said that compared to the Uniform Crime Report of 2010, which saw a 30 percent increase in violent crime over the previous year, 2011 was ending up with a 15 percent decrease in violent crime and a 10 percent decrease in overall crime.
Whitten said these figures are largely due to what he calls geographic policing, something he implemented when he took over the department.
The city has been divided into eight districts that all see the same patrol officers, detectives, and community policing officers. Whitten said the advantage is that officers become more familiar with each specific area they are designated to and are able to easily communicate any crime trends that may arise.
He said that in 2012, geographic policing will be going one step further by designating eight department supervisors in charge of each district in Harlingen.
“I encourage officers to be innovative and think outside of the box,” Whitten said. “We’ve already seen a significant decrease in calls for service, which allows the department to patrol the streets more actively.”
Also in 2012, the department is getting 11 new Dodge Chargers for patrol. He said he’d like to order new software for all patrol cars that would keep all electronic equipment on the dashboards of the cars and in the trunks, clearing room for more space.
He said the department is getting ready to open a Press Corps Room that will accommodate members of the news media and allow them access to police reports and to be tuned into breaking news as it happens.
“This is all part of being transparent,” Whitten said. “We trust the media will respect our boundaries and work alongside us to inform the citizens of Harlingen.”
In his pursuit of professional excellence, Whitten said, HPD is on track in 2012 to get Certified Law Enforcement Analyst Program (CLEA) accreditation, a nationally recognized policing program aimed at achieving the best results in policing and investigation. If certified, Whitten said HPD would become the only CLEA certified department in the entire Valley.