Food bank project to be revived in Pharr

PHARR — Construction is set to begin this month on the new Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley building after months of legal battle between the nonprofit and its architect had paralyzed the project.

The food bank is set to be housed in the Valley Fruit & Vegetable Company building, a historic structure in downtown Pharr dating to 1947. The charity will spend about $4 million to renovate the building.

The move will help improve the image of Pharr, as the building has remained largely unoccupied since 2004 and has become an eyesore on Cage Boulevard, the main artery of the city.

The food bank bought the building in 2005, and it could move in to the structure as early as summer 2009, Executive Director Terri Drefke said.

“It finally makes this thing a reality,” said Luis A. Bazán, president of the Pharr Chamber of Commerce. “It’s something worth waiting for.”

The charity’s board of directors voted last month to move forward with construction, despite the legal issues that have surrounded the project for months, Drefke said.

In March, the food bank and the architect it hired for the project, M.B. Arc Architectural Resource Consultants, filed lawsuits against each other.

The food bank had hired M.B. Arc to prepare plans and specifications for the renovation. By mid-November 2006, the food bank asked for a final bill and status report, yet the architect continued to work on the project without permission and bill the charity, according to the food bank’s lawsuit.

But M.B. Arc accuses the food bank of breaching its contract and failing to pay its bills.

In April 2007, the architect claimed a $175,000 lien against the food bank on the property.

Drefke said it’s time to move on with the project, despite the pending legal issues.

“We got people to feed and business to do,” Drefke said. “The court case doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.”

The case could go to trial as early as February.

M.B. Arc could not be reached for comment Friday. A voicemail box for the consultant was full. Another phone number for the consultant on file with the Texas Secretary of State’s office was for a different business.

Since 1991, the food bank has operated out of a 25,000 square foot building at 26th Street and Zinnia Avenue. It also leases a 40,000-squarefoot building warehouse.

The new facility in Pharr will give the food bank 85,000 square feet of space. The structure is located on 14 acres, giving the food bank room to expand in the future, Drefke said.

“We’ve needed a bigger house for quite a while,” said Drefke, adding that the nonprofit served 21 million pounds of food during the previous fiscal year.

The Pharr building is also an improvement over the existing site because of its convenient location near U.S. 83 and U.S. 281, Drefke said.

She added that as food bank moves forward with the renovations, it will try to retain the historic character of the building.

“It will still look like it always had,” Drefke said, “except better, cleaner and nicer.”