City narrows arena footprint; has yet to reach out to residents in adjacent areas

While city council continues to push the Multipurpose Cultural and Performing Arts Center forward, groups and residents opposed to the Downtown arena site are concerned about what will happen to the people right next to the proposed site.

The City of El Paso has put out a map showing the specific area where the arena will be built within the original four block area, shown in blue on the map. The actual footprint for the arena site has been narrowed to the area in yellow.

While people in the yellow footprint that would be directly displaced by the project are being considered for relocation and rental assistance, opponents of the arena claim many more will be affected, regardless of whether the city takes the land in the surrounding blue area. Residents living in that area told ABC-7 they have not been offered any help or guidance.

“By our count, the master plan area includes about 150 people,” said Max Grossman, vice chair of the El Paso County Historical Commission. “But approximately two-thirds of those people live within the master plan, but outside the arena footprint.

Grossman said that residents in the area right around the arena footprint are anxious and unsure about the future, and that they won’t get assistance.

“And we don’t need to speculate,” Grossman said. “This is not us, this is the city. If you read their website, it says quite clearly.”

From the corner of Overland Avenue and Chihuahua Street, right on the edge of where the arena would actually sit, you can see some of the apartments that residents fear could be impacted. Residents ABC-7 spoke with said they haven’t heard anything from the city or any other agency about what will happen to them in the long run.

“The master plan area we know is going to be affected by the development of the arena within the footprint,” said City Attorney Sylvia Borunda Firth. “So city staff has always known that, and has always anticipated an incentive.”

Firth said during Tuesday’s council meeting that the property owners around the arena will want to redevelop. That could in turn force out residents and business owners renting properties in that blue area.

“We’re anticipating that there will be some relocation assistance provided as those private property owners come forward to the city,” Firth said. “Right now we’re just concentrated on the footprint.”

One man who live in one of the apartment that spoke to ABC-7 said he sees positive and negatives from the continued project: the possibility of getting a construction job from it versus the loss of his home.

“I’m scared that (the apartment owners are) just going to say, just up and one day, ‘Yeah, we’re changing. We’re not going to do the apartments no more,'” said Russell Pinching. “‘We’re going to a strip mall or we’re going to go to a mini mall.'”

But even if there was assistance offered, many of the residents ABC-7 spoke with said there’s not much trust in what the city says.

“What kind of transparency is that? There’s none at all,” said Michael Patino, who owns The Rock House Cafe and Gallery, and lives in a house right next to it, all within the master plan area. “That’s what makes the residents actually frightened for their actual homesteads.”

“The problem with the city is that they’re untrustworthy,” said Gilbert Guillen, who also lives and works in the master plan area. “At that community meeting about two weeks ago, they said they had held all types of meetings. Nobody was at those meetings. They didn’t really happen.”