The new vision for Cohen; City Council gets a sneak peek

Northeast El Paso will soon be seeing some changes and it will all begin at Cohen Stadium.

The stadium will be demolished and the city plans to build an entertainment district at the site.

Monday, El Paso City Council got a preview of what the new Cohen area could look like.

A presentation was put together by a consulting firm from Los Angeles.

The redesign showed renderings that included several stores, restaurants, a water park and a hotel.

There is even a chance the site could include a performance stage with a large video board and there was also one rendering that showed plans for a media studio.

But who will be paying for the redesign of Cohen?

The project will be funded through a private/public partnership with the city of El Paso putting in more than 12 million dollars.

That money will be used to cover the cost of the performance stage and to pay for the demolition of Cohen Stadium.

The city also says they’ll be getting funding through a tax increment reinvestment zone (TIRZ) which will reinvest tax revenues from the district back into the project.

However, the city is still going to need some outside help.

Sam Rodriguez, an El Paso city engineer, says the city is looking for a private developer to help fund and to help make these plans come to fruition.

“We always understood that this needed to be a private/public partnership,” Rodriguez said. “We’re going to need private investment to come in and to make the development a reality. We already have some of the public funding that’s required for some of the uses. Now it’s just establishing that vision, so that we can go out and fully market the overall vision for this entertainment district.”

One thing northeast residents won’t have to wait for is the water park.

The water park that is planned for Cohen is already funded and should begin construction by next year.

Funding is coming from the the 2012 Quality of Life Bond and the 2017 Capital Improvement Plan.

The northeast water park is just one of 5 water parks the city is building around El Paso.

Each one has a price tag of about $8 million dollars and all 5 water parks are scheduled to be done by the summer of 2020.