West Texas Idea Exchange proves El Paso retail business booming

This year is shaping up to be a big year for retail business in El Paso and ABC-7 learned the booming growth isn’t stopping anytime soon.

The annual West Texas Idea Exchange event drew about 200 people Wednesday at the Doubletree Hotel downtown. Local development companies such as River Oaks Properties and MIMCO Inc. were represented as well as companies hoping to come to the Borderland.

From the Fountains at Farah to expanding the Outlet Shoppes at El Paso, the Borderland has seen a lot of comings and some goings.

It was a gathering of the minds at the West Texas Idea Exchange. Along with networking, business leaders got to see what’s in the works and what’s yet to come.

“We’re a little bit different,” Norma Mendoza said. “We are bilingual. We are multicultural. It is important that you get to know us so that you don’t try to give us a cookie-cutter approach in your marketing.”

Mendoza is the president of Merkadoteknia Research and Consulting. She has studied the best areas of town to open up shop and what the Mexican consumer wants.

In 2012, Merkadoteknia surveyed nearly 700 cross-border consumers and found more than 26 percent spend on average $100 to $200 per trip. Most shoppers are between the ages of 36 and 45 and visit El Paso once a month.

“We have two leases signed right now,” Jimmy John’s Real Estate Manager Kenny Burdi said. Both sandwich shops are coming soon to the west side — one near Franklin High School on Redd Road and Resler Drive, the other near the University of Texas at El Paso.

With a new ballpark and several Quality of Life Bond projects underway, there’s no doubt that investing in the Borderland is worth every dollar.

Some big shopping complexes opening soon include North Hills Crossing at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and U.S. 54 in the northeast, and Montana Commons at Loop 375 and Montana Avenue in the far east.