RGV Native Grows Retailing in Region
McAllen native Will Collins has built a formidable retail and commercial real estate company whose developments span much of South Texas.
From its headquarters in San Antonio, Merit Commercial Real Estate shows on its webpage dark blue diamonds pinned on a Texas map. Each pin represents a Merit development project with clusters of them in the Rio Grande Valley and the San Antonio-area market. Collins comes from a banking family. He would start his own real estate company and in 2021 it would merge with another company to form Merit.
Since then, Collins and his founding business partner, Ryan Harrison, have worked intensively to develop projects in the two key South Texas markets. For Collins, there are the personal insights and pride of reconnecting to the Valley and finding the right locations to grow his company and seeing his hometown region prosper.
“I’m very proud to be from the Rio Grande Valley and I’m very proud of all we’ve been able to do in the Valley,” Collins said recently after the groundbreaking at the Shops at Mercedes. “We have a very unique culture here and those of us who grew up here know how special it is.”
As of late, he said, there is no part of the region that has been more important to his company than where he was standing at the July 3 event in Mercedes.
“What I’ve seen as we have gone across the Valley is just how much growth is occurring in the mid-cities,” said Collins, who is Merit’s chief executive officer.
‘Keep People In Mercedes’
It was a full house under a big tent on a large open space located across the street from the Rio Grande Valley Premium Outlets in Mercedes.
A procession of photos featuring Collins and elected officials and community leaders followed remarks from the podium. Mercedes Mayor Oscar Montoya thanked Collins and Merit for “investing in a fledgling city.” County Commissioner David Fuentes said development of the Shops at Mercedes shows “the future is right here in the central part of the Valley.”
Suzanne Schwarz Shepard, whose family with deep local ties, sold the property that would become the outlet mall and now the Shops location.
“Mercedes is the kind of place where you want to be,” Shepard said of her hometown.
A key part of developing the Shops, Collins said, was convincing Shepard that “we were the right team for her family’s land.”
Once completed, the Shops will fill much of the current open space found between the outlet mall and the administrative offices of the South Texas Independent School District. Marshalls, Burlington and Boot Barn are among the retail tenants who have committed to the Shops. Merit, from its previous developments has business relationships with some of the country’s better-known retail and restaurant brands, is working to fill out its roster at the Shops.
Forging Ahead
The outlet mall has a reputation as a prime destination for Mexican national shoppers.
Collins said that factor was a key one in deciding to develop on the busy intersection of Expressway 83 and Mile 1 1/2 East Road. Mercedes leaders say the 250,000 square feet of retailing and restaurants at Shops at Mercedes will keep local shoppers and Mexican nationals in the city longer in spending their dollars.
“We’ve had huge leakage to other cities to the extent we have money being lost to neighboring cities,” said Mercedes City Commissioner and Mayor Pro Tem Ruben Saldana. “With these new developments we will be able to keep people in Mercedes and that will be helpful for many businesses in our community.”
Merit in recent years has forged ahead as the biggest retail developer in the Valley. Its projects and property management in the region run from Rio Grande City to Brownsville and just about every community in between. Collins views the region as still being underserved in that it lacks the presence of large institutional builders. Job growth does not always reflect the population growth in the Valley and a rate of commercial development commensurate with the region’s expansion, he said.
Projects like the one in Mercedes and emerging Shops at 493 in Donna make clear Merit and its RGV-grown CEO are working to change that description.
As seen in Valley Business Report
By: Ricardo D. Cavazos, VBR content editor
