Texas Border Business
By Roberto Hugo González
On May 28, 2025, the Mission Economic Development Corporation (Mission EDC) hosted a Commercial and Investment Tour at the Center for Education and Economic Development (CEED), spotlighting four developers whose work is reshaping Mission, Texas. The event, led by Mission EDC CEO Teclo Garcia, offered guests a panel discussion and virtual tour, with insights from developers who each launched or expanded their ventures in the city.
“Thank you for being here, taking time to talk about some really important issues regarding development,” Garcia said as he welcomed the crowd. “We’ve got some great guests.”
The panelists, who represented a range of industries and development types, included Dr. Rolando “Rollie” Ortiz of Killam Development, Luis Rodrigo Castillo of Union Design Developers, Eddie Silva of Domain Development, and Ernesto Gonzalez of Arch Renati/Tekna Impact.
Dr. Ortiz, COO of Killam Real Estate, has overseen multiple projects in Mission, including the highly anticipated El Milagro development. “We’ve done several developments in Laredo, Texas, and we’ve been doing work here in Mission for about five years,” he said. El Milagro will include over 360 single-family homes, 100 townhome lots, and 30 acres of commercial space, extending from Anzalduas to Conway.
“We asked the community what they wanted in a subdivision,” Ortiz said, describing a weeklong series of charettes that shaped the design. “The idea is live, work, and play.” Killam currently owns about 2,200 acres in the area. Garcia noted the company’s major role, stating, “They’re certainly a large contributor to Mission.”
Luis Rodrigo Castillo, co-owner of Union Design Developers, shared a personal connection to Mission’s growth. “We’re locals now,” he said, pointing to the family-owned nature of the business. Castillo credited his parents for their early vision for Mission. “The vision always existed,” he explained. The company is planning a 145-acre industrial park near the Anzalduas Bridge, driven by nearshoring opportunities. “It started with a napkin, a paper, and a lot of coffee,” he said. “But now it’s about execution.”
Ernesto Gonzalez, a Mission resident of over 25 years, presented two ventures—TEKNA Impact and Arch Renati. TEKNA provides labels to critical industries and offers early signals of economic shifts. Arch Renati builds shipping container homes aimed at extremely low-income residents. “There are 680,000 people in Texas waiting for housing,” Gonzalez said. “We’re focusing on rentals under $1,000 to provide safe and dignified homes.”
He added that the container homes are duplex units priced around $50,000 total—$25,000 per apartment. “Stable housing equals stable families, which equals thriving communities,” Gonzalez said. He praised Garcia for helping connect the company to grants and resources. “He immediately started seeing how he could help.”
Eddie Silva of Domain Development highlighted Mission’s strong commercial performance. “The shopping centers we have in Mission are our highest performing,” Silva said. Domain Development has completed several projects in the city, including retail and residential developments near Business 83 and Shary Road. “We’re actively looking for our next project in Mission,” Silva said. “It’s really difficult to find land right now. That should tell you something.”
Silva noted the synergy between national, regional, and local tenants in their centers. “It serves as a trampoline for many local tenants to grow or start and hit the ground running,” he said.
Throughout the panel, Garcia facilitated the discussion with humor and candor. “We’re gonna kind of go around the horn here and let people talk about their projects, why they’re in Mission, and what they’re doing,” he said. His closing words summed up the event’s spirit: “We’re super happy with the investment happening in Mission. And for many of these developers, their mission really did start here.”
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