Industrial space developer begins work on 23-acre office park in West El Paso

After more than 30 years developing the large Northwestern Corporate Center industrial park in far West El Paso, Brent Harris is doing his first non-industrial development.

Work has begun on the 23-acre Canyon Creek business office park, on the edge of the Northwestern industrial park in a booming commercial retail area.

It primarily will be a medical office park — a big need in West El Paso, said Harris, 65, managing partner of El Paso's Plexxar Companies, which do industrial space development and management.

It’s located along Resler Drive between Helen of Troy Drive and Paseo del Norte Boulevard, where fast food outlets and other new, mostly retail businesses are funneling down from the West Towne Marketplace . The large Lifestyles on the Reserve apartment complex is across Resler from Canyon Creek.

Doctors look to own office buildings

The demand is not just for medical offices, but office buildings that doctors and other professionals can own, Harris said.

Twelve to 20 lots, each half-acre to three acres, will be sold. Prices are not being disclosed. Buyers will construct their own buildings.

The office demand is largely driven by The Hospitals of Providence's 7-year-old Transmountain hospital, about two miles from Canyon Creek, on the northern edge of the Northwestern Corporate Center, Harris said.

Another driver is the recently expanded Rio Vista Behavioral Health hospital and outpatient center directly behind  Canyon Creek.

“We’ve had an incredible number of inquiries and meetings,” Harris said. “The majority of the people that we’ve met with are all medical related — dentists, psychiatrists, pediatric (doctors), surgery groups." Lawyers also have shown interest.

Restaurants, hotel may be in the mix

While most of Canyon Creek will be devoted to office buildings, it also has outlying lots ideal for restaurants and other retail-type uses, Harris said.

The park’s first sale is a 1.5-acre lot off of Resler Drive that will not have an office building. The buyer's name or plans can't yet be divulged, Harris said. A hotel operator also has shown interest in 3½ lots off of Northwestern Drive.

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Canyon Creek’s utilities and other infrastructure, including a private street extending through the park, are expected to be completed in October.

A 5,000-square-foot spec office building is to be built by early summer 2025 to showcase the type of design Plexxar is targeting for the park, which will have construction requirements for lot buyers.

“It’s kind of like a model home in a residential development,” Harris said.

The Canyon Creek site was inside the Northwestern industrial park's original footprint. One of its entrance name signs sits at the corner of Helen of Troy and Resler. However, the site is too small for industrial buildings and is now surrounded by non-industrial development.

Another medical office complex, more industrial sites

Harris also has his sights on developing another possible medical office complex on a Plexxar-owned 26-acre site on Resler Drive, next to the Providence Transmountain hospital and ADP's two-building complex at the northern edge of the Northwestern industrial park. That land is not yet ready for development, he said.

Another 203 acres owned by Plexxar in the same area are planned for a residential community in the future, he said.

Plexxar's plans also call for constructing two to three large industrial buildings on 82 acres on the northeast corner of Resler and Transmountain and another large industrial building on 16 acres on Resler Drive, next to the newest Schneider Electric factory building, which Plexxar constructed and leases to Schneider as part of its four-building manufacturing campus.

Non-industrial projects change Northwestern park

The Northwestern Corporate Center has 22 industrial buildings, more than 3.8 million square feet of space, and several hundred acres of land, making it one of El Paso's larger industrial parks.

When Harris and his business partners began the industrial park around 1988, the plan was for all the land to be for industrial development, Harris said.

Then, Providence's Transmountain hospital opened in 2017 and “changed the dynamics of the market,” he said. Hunt Companies developed the Cimarron housing community near the industrial park over several years, and the first stores in West Towne Marketplace began opening in late 2017 at Interstate 10 and Paseo del Norte Boulevard.

The hospital, West Towne, and some of Cimarron’s commercial areas are in the industrial park's original footprint. Those projects transformed the area from strictly an industrial park into a “mixed-use, work-live development,” Harris said.

Canyon Creek is another needed piece, he said.

Vic Kolenc may be reached at 915-546-6421; vkolenc@elpasotimes.com ; @vickolenc on Twitter , now known as X.

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This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Industrial space developer begins work on 23-acre office park in West El Paso