Sun Metro, City of El Paso break ground on Northgate Transfer Center

Sun Metro and the City of El Paso’s Capital Improvement Department held a Groundbreaking Ceremony Friday for the new Northgate Transfer Center in Northeast El Paso.

The $10.6 million facility will be constructed on a portion of a 30-acre site located near Dyer Street and Diana Drive at the former site of the Northpark Mall.

Sun Metro director Jay Banasiak said he hopes the transfer center will help spur redevelopment in the area. “(This property) has been a dilapidated mall for years and years and years, and we’re finally going to build something there,” Banasiak said.

The transfer center will anchor a public-private development known as Metro 31, which is a mixed-use venture that will integrate the new transfer center, and its Dyer Brio rapid transit corridor station with residential, retail and commercial office spaces.

El Paso is one of the first cities in the nation to create a robust transit oriented development around a bus rapid transit system, city officials said.

“We’re going to put everything out there that you need to live plus transportation,” Banasiak said. “the beauty of it is that not only is it going to be fixed route, which is there now, but is also going to be BRT (Bus Rapid Transit). For instance, you’ll be able to get to downtown really fast.”

City Representative, Carl L. Robinson, said the transit center will serve as a model for the rest of the city and the nation, as it is the first of its kind. “The focus on the here and now is that we just did the groundbreaking, shoveled some dirt, and the project is on it’s way,” Robinson said.

The project is expected to be completed by the Fall 2017.