By Adam Frank, president, River Oaks Properties As one of the sector’s largest owners and developers, we have been witness to a number of uplifting and heartbreaking outcomes wrought by COVID-19 in the El Paso retail market over the last year. We’ve spent countless hours working with the 800 or so tenants that comprise our portfolio, negotiating rent deferrals and restructured leases, helping them navigate the newly launched Paycheck Protection Program and devising creative real estate solutions to help keep their businesses afloat. In some cases, these efforts have helped tenants keep their doors open. In others, the economic impacts of COVID-19 ultimately hit the employee bases and operating budgets of tenants — especially those of the mom-and-pop variety — too harshly for them to survive. But through the good, bad and universally unprecedented challenges of 2020, we have seen one category of retail — food and beverage — position itself as the clear leader in the recovery and inevitable return to growth of the broader El Paso market. As is often the case during economic downturns, the grocery sector has performed well over the past year, with both large- and small-format players looking to expand in El Paso. River …
