Texas A&M system approves new AgriLife Research Center in McAllen
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A multi-million dollar investment is on its way to the Rio Grande Valley.
Texas A&M University has green-lit a new project. A new AgriLife Research Center will be built in north McAllen.
The new facility is expected to drive growth in more ways than one. From training future scientists to helping address the water shortage in the Valley.
The sound of construction is hard to miss at Tres Lagos in north McAllen. New roads, new homes, and soon, a new research center.
Texas A&M AgriLife is investing more than $53 million to build a new 43,000 square-foot building. It will have modern labs -- research facilities and a fabrication center.
RELATED STORY: Texas A&M AgriLife to build $50 million research center in McAllen
The Texas A&M system approved the project last month and will be near the Texas A&M Higher Education campus in McAllen.
The first floor will welcome students, and upstairs there will be new labs for scientists working on challenges that hit close to home.
The center will help address issues like biosecurity, water-efficient farming and public health.
"With the infrastructure and the growth and the support of the students, both undergraduate and potentially graduate students, there's also the addition of eight to 10 scientists focusing on different disciplines to address some of the more crucial needs or some of the more crucial issues that we are seeing currently throughout the Rio Grande Valley," AgriLife Research Executive Associate Director Stephen Cisneros said.
This is the second AgriLife Research Center Texas A&M University has planned for the Valley. The first opened in Weslaco back in 1948.
"Where he's introducing, improving the spinach to have higher vitamin C because that has health benefit, but at the same time it has benefit on production!" Texas A&M Agricultural Economist Professor Felipe Peguero said.
Scientists there conduct lab and field research on fruit and vegetable crops. The new facility in McAllen will expand research and train the next generation of scientists.
"Here in the Valley, water scarcity is an issue and, for example, some of my colleagues are trying to identify a crop alternative, business alternative, to substitute products that demand a lot of water," Peguero said.
The sugarcane industry in the Valley disappeared overnight due to a lack of water, but Peguero says the new research center will let him expand his work and connect students to real-world solutions.
Officials say they plan to start the design process later this year and construction could start by next fall.
If the project goes as planned, the research center will open its doors by the spring or summer of 2028.
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