What El Pasoans are Saying About the “Deck Plaza” Proposal

There is a plan to revitalize Downtown El Paso with something called a “deck plaza”.

It would involve transforming the area near downtown where all the north-south streets go over Interstate 10. Imagine if that part of I-10 were turned into, essentially, a long tunnel.

The TOP of that “tunnel” would be the deck plaza where there could be public spaces, sports fields and even room for a concert venue…all happening about 20 feet ABOVE I-10.

You can check out artists conceptions of the deck plaza at the Downtown Deck Plaza Foundation’s own website.

The project has an estimated price tag of roughly $207 million.  Here are some of the opinions we got from callers today:

“Hell no. No more construction near downtown. Those people in favor of it must not be from El Paso”.

“How about fixing the potholes all over Dyer and Central El Paso first?”

“We’re wasting more money on downtown? Are you kidding me? The rest of the city is falling apart. Get with it!”

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Not ALL of the calls were negative, though.

“Can we move away from this outdated mentality and embrace progress? I think building the deck plaza would be a fantastic step forward!”

KFOX-14 reports that at a recent public meeting, MOST of those in attendance favored the deck plaza plan.

Here’s what I identify as the major concerns with the project:

Traffic.

Construction of that kind of project is going to really impact traffic flow in and around downtown El Paso.  If you work downtown, you might remember the “challenges” involved when they put in the downtown Street Car project.  Let’s not forget how well THAT boondoggle turned out.

How do we raise the money and are we sure it’s enough. As we’ve talked about…exhaustively…is the Downtown Multi-Purpose Arena that was approved ALLLLLL the way back in 2012. Ground has still NEVER been broken on that and now city leaders like Mayor Oscar Leeser say the initial set-aside for that project was way, way under the actual cost. How do we know this project won’t turn into the same kind of debacle.

Shade.

You can spend 200 million bucks bit unless there’s some way of putting trees and grass in, that Urban Heat Dome effect is going to be intolerable for most of the summer and fall months.

The abortive MPC, the pathetically inept street cars…alls I’m saying is “3 strikes and you’re out” doesn’t just apply at Southwest University Park.