By Lupita Gutierrez-Garza, principal, and Christian Gutierrez, senior associate, Southern Commercial Real Estate Group The impacts of COVID-19 on the retail sector in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) have mirrored those of the rest of the country. However, the way the region responded was different from the way it addressed past crises, such as natural disasters, and even very different from past responses to local problems like peso devaluations and drug cartel activity along the border. The response was multifaceted and included many trial-and-error situations. But through sheer determination and quick thinking by local leadership, regional landlords and tenants managed to mitigate all the uncertainty to not only survive, but to thrive. What made a difference in the region was the behind-the-scenes build-up of its economic infrastructure that has slowly been chipping away at the inequities the region has endured for years. Infrastructure build-up has been ongoing for over a decade and has come in many forms, including education and medical, industrial and logistics, aerospace technology and wind energy. All of these sectors managed well during the peak of the pandemic and continued to expand at phenomenal paces. Their growth has piqued a lot of outside interest and investment …
