San Benito CISD Maintenance Director David Garcia is shown outside the walk-in freezer of the food nutrition department, located inside a facilities complex now utilized by the district to house a number of other departments. Also shown is the interior of the food nutrition department's break room and ongoing construction at the complex. (Staff photos by Francisco E. Jimenez)
By FRANCISCO E. JIMENEZ
Staff Writer
reporter@sbnewspaper.com
The San Benito CISD Facilities Complex, better known as the U-TEX building, may be nearing completion, but it’s already benefiting the district with its accessibility, according to officials.
“It was a completely empty warehouse,” said Superintendant of Schools Antonio G. Limón. “We traded two pieces of property, plus paid a million dollars, so I think it ended up costing us a little bit over $2 million when you total the property value and what we paid. That sized building, if you were to build it at today’s costs, even when we bought it, it would cost us $11 million if we tried to build it.”
The building was purchased in 2006 from an investor.
“We approached him to purchase it and trade off our valuable property that we owned over on Paso Real,” said Limón. “We got over a million dollars worth in exchange for that property when we traded away those 17 acres. Then we purchased U-TEX, which I believe sits on 20-something acres.”
For more on this story, pick up a copy of the March 13 edition of the San Benito News. Or view our E-Edition by clicking here.
Recent Comments