Feb. 07–El Paso engineer William Correa said he expects to have his dream hotel under construction by June.
Correa, an El Paso native who is president and owner of Paragon Project Resources, an engineering and development firm he started in Dallas 25 years ago, is the brain behind the proposed, $64 million, 220-room, upscale Westin Hotel and 80,000-square-foot restaurant and retail project to be built on nine acres of El Paso airport-owned land on Airway Boulevard near Montana Avenue.
Correa announced Thursday that Paragon’s development company, EP Vida, selected Jordan Foster Construction, a large El Paso-based general contractor, to provide pre-construction services for the project. Jordan Foster also is expected to be hired as general contractor, Correa said.
The hotel and retail project is projected to open in fall 2015.
Paragon and Sava Holdings, a hotel investment and management company also based in the Dallas area, are partners in the project. It is to receive millions of dollars in city incentives, including property and sale tax rebates and won’t pay land lease fees for three years under a 40-year lease with the airport. The City Council approved the incentives and lease in May.
Correa said he believes the hotel and retail project will eventually bring more hotel customers to El Paso and attract more meetings.
But Rick LaFleur, general manager of the 273-room El Paso Airport Wyndham Hotel, said the proposed Westin will only further dilute the El Paso hotel business. And it will provide unfair competition because it won’t be paying the same taxes and rent paid by his hotel and other airport-area hotels, LaFleur said.
“Right now, the hotel business is on a decline (in El Paso), and airport (passenger) traffic is down. There is no demand for another airport hotel,” said LaFleur, who also is president of the El Paso Hotel-Motel Association. “It’s absolutely ridiculous.
“No one goes to a city because of a new hotel,” he said.
Correa said Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Westin’s owner, has a strong loyalty program that will draw new customers to El Paso with the four-star hotel.
“I recognized a need for this type of product in this community,” Correa said. “It was a goal of mine. I had a hotel study done in 2008” with the airport-owned land in mind, he said. The land’s been vacant for several years after a former Levi Strauss & Co. jeans factory located there was torn down.
Correa grew up in El Paso and graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso in 1973 with an engineering degree. He started his engineering company in 1989. It has about 80 employees, including seven in El Paso, and offices in six states and Puerto Rico. It specializes in airport and other transit-related projects, and in recent years branched out into other types of projects. It oversaw construction several years ago of the Grand Hyatt Hotel at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Correa said.
Paragon’s headquarters remains in the Dallas area, but Correa said he an his wife moved back to El Paso about eight years ago.
Correa said he is in the process of getting the $38 million to $45 million in loans his partnership will need to build the project. He hopes El Paso lenders will provide at least part of that financing, he said.
Darren Woody, CEO of Jordan Foster Construction, which has built many hotels around the country, in a statement called the Westin project an exciting one for the airport area.
“It’s a great economic stimulus for El Paso,” Woody said.
Vic Kolenc may be reached at 546-6421.
