Nine buildings have been purchased in one fell swoop in downtown El Paso, with the future use of the structures not yet announced.
A company connected to the Parking Systems of America has acquired the properties, but according to published reports, said there are no plans for creating more parking lots on the block in question.
While exact plans for the structures have not been revealed, it has been speculated that they may be upgraded for new retail purposes.
In the spring of 2017, Parking Systems purchased a seven-story building located at 416 N. Stanton, as well as an adjacent parking lot with space for around 240 vehicles.
The Dallas-based Parking Systems has properties throughout Texas and focuses primarily on garages for Class A office properties, as well as surface lots.
The new purchase, by Belclaire Realty of Dallas, which is described as the sister company of Parking Systems, takes in properties on four blocks of South Stanton Street, as well as a single property located at 201 E. Overland Avenue, several blocks away from Stanton Street.
While a price for the combined properties was not divulged, the El Paso Times has reported that they went for just over $3 million.
The buildings are mostly one-story structures in a retail part of downtown that between the 1940s and 90s was thriving, but in recent years has endured a large number of vacancies.
The story of just one of the properties, at 300 S. Stanton, is instructive: recently the JJF Shoes store, it was a different shoe store a decade ago, called Shoe Show. Before that it was the home to the Household Furniture Company, and in the 1960s was the Plaza Furniture Company.
Like most of the structures on the block, the one at 300 S. Stanton, is more than a century old.
By Garry Boulard
