New plans to level, redevelop former Roberts Elementary property for retail, hotel use

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- The site of the former Oran Roberts Elementary School will be demolished and leveled to make way for a new commercial development by the start of 2025. According to the real estate agency that closed the deal for the sale of the property, the plans include building out of office and retail space, along with a hotel.

"We're working on planning and engineering to demolish the site within the coming months," said Sebastian Alcazar, broker associate with the real estate agency Team Juan Uribe, "for development purposes to bring a more level property and eventually work on the property to bring in the retail users on the site."

Roberts was closed in 2021 as the El Paso Independent School District consolidated the student population in the area into Don Haskins PK-8. The new site plans and design renderings call for the 13-acre property to be made more level from the slight downhill gradient it currently has.

"If not by the end of this year, towards the first quarter of 2025 it's probably going to be be leveled," Alcazar said. "None of the existing site will remain."

The Roberts building itself is more than 50 years old. For the developer, renovating the building for commercial use would be cost-prohibitive and limit the future use of the site.

"We do already have a hotel user in mind," Alcazar said. "So we plan to have this as mid to light commercial retail use, specifically catered towards... restaurant, retail and doctors office use."

Some unique features of the property, such as frontage on the access road to I-10, made it particularly attractive to commercial redevelopment. While each property is unique, Alcazar says this could be a template for how future re-use of former school sites is handled.

"I think this could certainly be a model," Alcazar said. "Not in the commercial sense, but maybe more so in redeveloping."