Proposed Location for New Texarkana Regional Water Plant
TexAmericas Center today (8/11) announced that it will be the site of Riverbend Water Resources District’s (RWRD) proposed new regional water treatment system to support the ongoing growth for current and future tenants at its industrial park and 16 other RWRD members entities.
According to a press release, the new regional water system would replace the water treatment facility located on New Boston Road in Texarkana and provide increased treatment capacity over the current treatment plant. The proposed location is on TexAmericas Center property near other existing RWRD facilities. The location would be expandable in the future to meet long-term growth and usage projections for the region. Proposed plans include a raw water intake structure to be constructed at the nearby 31-square-mile U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoir, Lake Wright Patman, as well as a raw water transmission line from the intake structure to the water treatment facility.
On August 5, RWRD shared that it had garnered the approval of up to $200 million in multi-year financing from the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund to finance planning, acquisition, design, and construction of a new regional water system.
“This state-of-the-art water system allows our current tenants to expand without concerns surrounding water treatment needs and availability,” said Scott Norton, TexAmericas Center Executive Director/CEO. “This also adds to the attractiveness of TexAmericas Center for businesses around the nation looking for affordability and access to solid infrastructure, talent pipelines, and logistics capabilities. We check all those boxes.”
Ranked earlier this month by Business Facilities’ 16th Rankings Report as the #8 industrial park in the country, TexAmericas Center is a catalyst for economic investment in the Texarkana region. Its 12,000 acres and 3 million square feet of space are fully entitled, providing potential tenants of specialized industries options that would be difficult or cost-prohibitive to secure in other regions. Its location in the Texarkana metropolitan area offers an attractive pipeline of talent and a logistics network to rival many larger – and therefore more expensive – urban hubs.
TexAmericas Center also offers a complement of unique assets like utilities, rail, fiber, and a transload provider.
“Investment in the water treatment system at TexAmericas will further spur economic development, jobs, and increased revenue for the Texarkana area,” said Eric Voyles, Executive Vice President and Chief Economic Development Officer with TexAmericas Center. “Our facility will be that much more attractive to key industries such as food processing, metals processing, and chemical processing businesses, and other commercial businesses.”
Since May 2014, TexAmericas Center has increased its total leased square footage by more than 85 percent to more than 1 million square feet.
Successes for TexAmericas Center are building momentum. In July, TexAmericas Center announced that Lockheed Martin, a global security and aerospace company employing more than 110,000 people worldwide, will expand operations into a building at the TexAmericas Center in support of a Public/Private Partnership contract with the Red River Army Depot.