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Opinion: In Duranguito, city should prioritizing ending longstanding neglect of the neighborhood [1]
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Date: 2025-01-02
By Carmen Rodríguez
Three city administrations have come and gone in the last 12 years and Barrio Durangito remains in a state of oblivion. Everyone wants to know the plans for Duranguito now that funding an arena was rejected by voters last November. Either no one knows, or no one wants to say.
In January 2023, the expectations of barrio supporters ran high that the City Council would finally move quickly to reconstruct and restore the historic neighborhood. After all, at the year’s first meeting, representatives took a bold and swift move to eliminate Duranguito as a location for the long-planned arena. Surely, it was expected, that action would be followed by a clear proposal to revive the area.
Soon after, barrio residents and supporters formed a non-profit 501(c) (3) organization, Project Regeneración, to support the neighborhood and promote its historic and cultural assets. We also started raising funds to contribute towards restoration. Mostly from small donations, we have collected $38,000.
Buildings on Chihuahua Street in Downtown El Paso remain behind chain-link and green mesh fencing as the city decides how to develop the neighborhood known as Duranguito. (Cindy Ramirez/El Paso Matters)
Later in 2023 Project Regeneración, in an effort to collaborate with city officials, requested an opportunity to share information with the City Council regarding significant neighborhood needs. The long impending plans for an arena had caused a decrease in habitable apartments, displacement of many families and depletion of services and resources.
Mayor Oscar Leeser and a majority of council were not interested and deleted the presentation, saying it was bad timing, and the council was hard at work addressing the issue. Clearly, addressing the issue meant optimizing economic development at the expense of local history, heritage and barrio residents.
As if disrupting the lives of inhabitants hadn’t been enough, the long delay to repair and rehabilitate the properties is a continuing affront to our barrio communities.
A couple of months later, a notice appeared on a city web page announcing a vague process for submitting letters of interest to purchase the city-owned properties. The city made no other effort to notify potential investors, individual buyers or the public of the properties’ availability.
Although Project Regeneración responded, nothing else came out of that process. About 10 months later, a city official stated there had been too little response and the process was scrapped.
At the very end of Leeser’s term, city officials announced a new approach and the council approved the issuance of a request for qualifications for a master developer.
Thus, a new chapter begins with a new mayor and a new plan. Will the new administration take into account the concerns of residents, historians, preservationists and community voices? Will it have the capacity to manage a project in an open, transparent and culturally relevant manner?
Project Regeneración remains hopeful and committed to working on a just solution to this long-standing neglect of a historic neighborhood.
This commentary was submitted on behalf of the Project Regeneración board of directors: David Romo, Marcos Muñoz, Romelia Mendoza, Beto Mestas, Larisa Veloz, Ingrid Leyva, Teresa Sotelo, Mónica García and Carmen Rodríguez.
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[1] Url:
https://elpasomatters.org/2025/01/02/opinion-priorities-for-preserving-duranguito-neighborhood/
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