The TexAmericas Center will be starting another fiscal year Saturday with a $10.5 million budget-$9 million of which will be self-generated.
Starting in about 2008, near Hooks, Texas, with 12,000 acres of land available for lease or purchase by businesses and industry, the center has more than 1,000 acres commercially occupied and generating local income, Scott Norton, the center's executive director and chief executive officer, said Tuesday after the center's monthly Board of Directors meeting.
With the center now on the verge of a new fiscal year, Norton presented a summary of Fiscal Year 2016 during the board meeting.
"TexAmericas Center experienced a year full of excitement, success, transition and continued challenges," Norton said. "Through those events, we became a more adaptive organization that faces challenges head on, with the focus being the long-term gain of the organization, our current and future tenants, our partners and this entire region."
During his presentation, Norton focused on four primary areas of accomplishment, which included but were not limited to management, governance, relationship building and leadership.
Regarding management, Norton pointed to the sale of 10 acres to the Hooks Special Industrial Development Corporation, as well as a $1.3 million expenditure on new roofs for two tenant buildings and the collecting of an additional $300,000 in income generated from a timber sale.
Norton added that he also got a chance to meet twice with the U.S. Army's Base Realignment and Closure Commission in Washington D.C., to discuss removing hazardous waste left over from ammunition testing on both the Red River Army Depot and the former Lone Star Army Ammunition Plant's High Explosive Burning Grounds.
As for governance, Norton pointed to the successful transfer of the center's water utilities from the center to the Riverbend Water Resources District as well as an agreement with Bowie County's Precinct 4 Road Department to conduct some concrete foundation removal where older buildings once stood.
Regarding the relationship building aspect, Norton told board members he attended several Riverbend Water Resources District Board of Directors meetings as well as Ark-Tex Council of Governments Board of Directors meetings.
He added that he also attended an Interstate 69 annual meeting in Houston and secured the center's membership on the Interstate 30 Corridor Study Committee.
Finally, regarding leadership, Norton said he met with Texarkana Regional Airport's new director, Mark Mellinger, to discuss partnership opportunities between the airport and the center.
"The airport is extremely important to both business and industrial growth as well as sustaining business growth in the area," he said.