DALLAS - Texas A&M University System plans to build a 100-acre campus in McAllen, challenging the rival University of Texas System's growing presence in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
The city of McAllen and Hidalgo County will provide the land and $10 million for construction of the campus and another $8 million for utilities and related infrastructure. TAMUS, which already has a medical facility in the area, will offer engineering technology, biomedical sciences, agriculture and life sciences courses at the new campus.
"This important new presence in South Texas enables Texas A&M to provide additional academic and leadership development opportunities to young people in fulfillment of our land-grant mission," TAMU President Michael Young said in announcing the plans on Sept. 15.
Young, Texas A&M Chancellor John Sharp, McAllen Mayor James Darling and Hidalgo County Judge Ramon Garcia signed a letter of intent at a joint meeting of the McAllen City Commission and the Hidalgo County Commissioners Court.
TAMUS has a variety of financial tools at its service, including revenue bonds, debt backed by the state's Permanent University Fund, and about $680 million of tuition revenue bonds approved by the 2015 Texas Legislature. TAMUS did not identify any projects in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in the TRB authorization, however.
The TAMUS announcement comes closely on the heels of the rival University of Texas System's plans to merge its two campuses in Harlingen and Brownsville and to build the first medical school in South Texas.
Under the letter of intent, all participants agree to the creation of the campus within the Tres Lagos development on the north side of McAllen. Tres Lagos is a 2,571-acre planned community located in McAllen's extraterritorial jurisdiction.
The goal is to open the facility by 2017 with 100 students, but expand to 750 students over five years.
The letter of intent calls for the parties to conduct due diligence "expeditiously" but notes that any final agreement must be approved by the governing bodies of each party, including the Texas A&M Board of Regents.
"We realize that this new presence gives the Rio Grande Valley and McAllen a phenomenal new higher education institution which South Texas deserves," Darling said.
