City: Laredo, Texas

Reporting to: Director, Economic Development

The Challenge

The city of Laredo, Texas, has faced significant challenges around revitalizing its downtown area—particularly in improving its business development and permitting processes. Among the city’s vacant buildings, 69% are over 50 years old, making it challenging for property owners to keep them up to code and resulting in widespread community disengagement. This project will focus on developing and implementing effective code and building processes and collaborative initiatives that ignite economic growth, improve residents’ quality of life, and bolster community development by recommending potential developments that can ignite a positive impact for a vibrant downtown. Given the city’s location on the U.S.-Mexico border, these efforts will also be essential to strengthen and maintain Laredo’s unique binational culture. Our downtown area has lost a sense of identity: for decades, the downtown was purely retail, catering to the needs of Mexican shoppers. When regulations and economies changed and the peso devalued, many stores closed. The area has significant potential to become a central point of interest for our residents: it is near the Republic of the Rio Grande Museum, Laredo College, and the city of Laredo and Webb County administrative buildings. The downtown is surrounded by San Agustin Historic District, San Bernardo Avenue, Laredo Cultural District, Fort McIntosh (Home of Laredo College), St. Peter’s Historic District, and El Azteca Historic District.

In the past 12 years, the city of Laredo has conducted several studies, including the Laredo Inner City Revitalization Study (2020), to identify challenges and opportunities for downtown revitalization. Laredo’s downtown has a high vacancy rate of buildings (32%) and commercial units (42.85%), resulting in economic decline, reduced foot traffic and tourism, diminished vibrancy, limited job opportunities, challenges for property owners, and negative community identity. Other economic challenges include the Mexican economy’s direct impact—including a devalued peso—on Laredo, lack of housing, limited green spaces, and widespread homelessness.  As a result, the city and previous administrations have invested in infrastructure and economic development tools to help spur revitalization projects. In 2023, the city partnered with a local organization to conduct a vacant building study and hosted its first Downtown Summit. Although some progress has been made and additional projects are planned, the mayor acknowledges that there is still much to be done to better Laredo’s downtown community.

The fellow will further these efforts by helping us to answer the following key questions:

• How might we deepen our understanding of resident and visitor needs and expectations for our downtown?
• What criteria do we apply to identify and prioritize opportunities for redevelopment?
• What do we know about downtown property owners?
• What are the current barriers in revitalization efforts, and what can we learn from other cities that have faced similar challenges?

What You’ll Do

To address these questions, the fellow will engage with the following key stakeholders:

• City of Laredo Mayor & City Manager’s Office
• City of Laredo Economic Development Department
• City of Laredo Community Development Department
• Downtown Reinvestment Zone Board
• Laredo Chamber of Commerce
• Laredo Main Street
• Laredo Cultural District
• Arts & Culture Commission
• Historical Commission
• Laredo College
• Laredo Housing Authority
• Mile One

The fellow will serve as a key member of the economic development team to support the development of strategies for reusing and revitalizing downtown buildings to create a greater sense of belonging in the community. A successful fellow will deliver creative ideas, assessments of the different project areas, and actionable roadmaps for entities, departments, and stakeholders—fostering more efficient processes, improved governance, and greater community engagement. Key deliverables include:

1. Report covering:
   • Data analysis using existing and newly collected data from different city departments (e.g., from downtown property owners or visitors)
   • SOAR analysis
   • Stakeholder map, including identified roles of key public, private, and academic actors
2. Presentation to the mayor/other key city stakeholders highlighting a project map with clear opportunities for redevelopment, leveraging the vacant building inventory and other data points
3. Engage with and leverage ongoing cross-departmental efforts around economic development as part of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative Innovation track by:
   • Supporting the implementation of the initiative chosen for testing during the track and advancing the delivery plan assembled during the program’s final phase
   • Testing/planning around one of the other initiatives from the portfolio, which could entail deploying design-based innovation methodologies, process improvements, or data projects
   • Developing a plan to scale innovation within the city and link innovation to other existing portfolios like a performance management system or a data team

What You’ll Bring

• Data analysis
• Design thinking
• Policy analysis
• Qualitative interviewing and analysis
• Financial modeling
• Language fluency Spanish (desired)
• Mapping (GIS)