{"id":182807,"date":"2026-02-27T11:08:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T11:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/182807\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T11:08:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T11:08:28","slug":"el-pasos-downtown-deck-plaza-faces-funding-gaps-as-city-revisits-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/182807\/","title":{"rendered":"El Paso\u2019s Downtown Deck Plaza faces funding gaps as City revisits project"},"content":{"rendered":"

EL PASO, Texas (KTSM<\/a>) \u2014 El Paso city representatives prepare to revisit the Downtown Deck Plaza proposal in early March as newly obtained public records and financial reviews show the long\u2011planned project\u00a0remains\u00a0far from fully funded.<\/p>\n

The proposed 6.5\u2011acre Deck Plaza\u00a0is envisioned as a public park complete with an amphitheater, field house, dog park,\u00a0playground\u00a0and other amenities, according to the project\u2019s official FAQ page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Max Grossman,\u00a0with\u00a0El Paso Taxpayer Revolt<\/a>,\u00a0submitted\u00a0an open\u2011records request to review the project\u2019s financial status.\u00a0Grossman\u00a0found that\u00a0the majority of grant applications the City sought to support the deck plaza were denied.<\/p>\n

\u201cFour of them were rejected. Three are pending and one was awarded. The one that was awarded was about $1 million, slightly under $60 million rejected, which was a real shocker. And a bit over $38 million pending. All of them together, about $100 million, only about a million were awarded.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0less than 1% of what the city is hoping to get,\u201d Grossman said.<\/p>\n

City Council is scheduled to take up the item<\/a> on\u00a0Tuesday, March 3, deciding whether to authorize the city manager to sign an agreement with TxDOT to move forward with design work.<\/p>\n

The design phase is expected to cost\u00a0$10.6 million, with the City contributing a little more than\u00a0$500,000\u00a0and covering any\u00a0additional\u00a0costs.<\/p>\n

Grossman argues that El Paso has a history of under\u2011budgeting large capital projects, raising concerns that taxpayers could eventually absorb cost overruns.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0feasibility\u00a0study\u2019s\u00a0assessment<\/a>\u00a0reports that\u00a0the\u00a0overall\u00a0project would cost around\u00a0$207 million in 2027 dollars. However after taking into account\u00a0additional infrastructure and development, the true total could reach closer to half a billion dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am worried that the taxpayers will have to foot the bill,\u201d\u00a0Grossman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur taxes keep going up every year. We have other priorities before building a concrete slab over our freeway,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

KTSM reached out to the City of El Paso for clarification on the status of the Deck Plaza, its grant\u00a0strategy\u00a0and details of the pending advanced funding agreement. The City did not respond before\u00a0this report aired.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) \u2014 El Paso city representatives prepare to revisit the Downtown Deck Plaza proposal in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[73202,138,140,139,498,14642],"class_list":["post-182807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-city-representatives","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news","tag-ktsm","tag-max-grossman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}