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BOCA CHICA BEACH — As a child, Christopher Basaldu, a lifelong resident of Brownsville, would take family trips to Boca Chica beach, a quiet stretch of shore 30 miles east of Brownsville. The small residential community surrounding it, known as Boca Chica Village, was quiet with little development.
The area has since been incorporated as the city of Starbase. The quiet village is now a bustling, high-end, gated residential community that predominantly houses employees of SpaceX, Elon Musk’s aerospace company that literally put the community on the map.
Long gone are the quiet drives to the beach, as the road that leads to it is now cluttered with construction and cranes.
“Part of being able to go out to Boca Chica Beach was to get away from construction. It was to be closer to nature,” said Basaldu, who also co-founded the South Texas Environmental Justice Network. “That’s becoming less and less possible.”
After SpaceX planted its stake in the ground more than 10 years ago, Brownsville has once again landed a major economic coup with Saronic Technologies, an Austin-based manufacturer of artificial intelligence-powered drone vessels, adding defense technology to the city’s portfolio.
On Thursday, Saronic announced the company would build its naval shipyard at the Port of Brownsville, a $3.2 billion investment in the region.
City and economic leaders have welcomed new companies like Saronic with open arms, hoping they are the answer to the region’s poverty woes. But critics like Basaldu worry that inviting high-tech businesses will only benefit the wealthy and have consequences, such as environmental damage and socioeconomic inequity.
Despite SpaceX boosting the average weekly wage in the Brownsville-Harlingen metro area by about 53% — outpacing the state’s increase of 45% — it still remains one of the most disadvantaged areas in the U.S. The city’s poverty rate hovers around 24%, which is more than double the national poverty rate.
Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño wants outside investors to see beyond Brownsville’s reputation as an impoverished city and more as an area of innovation. SpaceX kickstarted that journey, Treviño said, and the region is emerging as the state’s newest tech hub.
“I’ve always been a firm believer … that we were nowhere near scratching the surface of what we were capable of,” Treviño said.
“They’re not taking our concerns seriously.”
In June, Cameron County officials approved a $211 million tax break deal for Saronic Technologies as an incentive to bring the company’s shipyard, named Port Alpha, to Brownsville.
The deal comes with the expectation that Saronic will generate $160 billion in regional economic impact for Cameron County and create 10,000 jobs over 10 years.
Construction on Port Alpha is slated to begin this year and operations to begin in 2028. It will be located on 835 acres at the Port of Brownsville, with the potential to expand to nearly 4,400 acres.
Treviño said reducing poverty in the region was a key reason officials approved the tax break for Saronic.
“I don’t want our families struggling any longer, having both parents work and barely able to pay their bills,” Treviño said. “We want them making as much money as they can, so that the kids have more opportunities, which will obviously enhance the entire community.”
Critics argue that drawing large corporations like Saronic is changing the region’s environmental landscape. Bekah Hinojosa, co-founder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, urged county leaders to not approve tax incentives for Saronic, saying the company has not adequately addressed environmental concerns.
Hinojosa and her group have consistently pushed back against SpaceX rocket launches and the construction of facilities to export liquefied natural gas, also known as LNG terminals. They have filed lawsuits and held protests that have centered on the effects that these companies have on pollution, the displacement of residents and the encroachment of land that serve as wildlife habitats.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“They were not taking our concerns seriously at all,” Hinojosa said about the county commissioners.
The fight will continue, she said.
“We’ve been speaking out about the risks and dangers of LNG for more than 10 years,” Hinojosa said. “We’ve had some victories, and we’ll continue to speak out and do everything we can.”
Some residents spoke out against tax incentives for Saronic on moral grounds, given the company’s involvement in creating military machines. When they addressed the county commissioners over the course of two meetings, they objected to allowing Brownsville to become host to the development of warships. “We need jobs that actually benefit the community, not jobs that contribute to war,” said Desto Huerta, a Brownsville resident, at a county commissioners meeting June 16.
Saronic could not be reached for comment as of publication, but in a news release, the company said Port Alpha represented a commitment to the country’s maritime future.
“Built from the ground up to deliver ships at a speed and scale not seen since World War II, this investment is about more than constructing a shipyard,” said Dino Mavrookas, CEO of Saronic. “It is about rebuilding the industrial capacity, workforce, and manufacturing advantage required
to ensure American maritime leadership for decades to come. The state of Texas and city of Brownsville give us the foundation to turn that vision into reality.”
Treviño, however, said many communities across the U.S. have benefited from the U.S. military’s investment in defense or national security.
“Does anybody think that San Antonio is a bad community? They don’t, right? And yet, the military helped make and build San Antonio,” Treviño said, referring to San Antonio’s five military bases.
Others argued that inviting companies like SpaceX and Saronic to the region will not provide the economic relief to Brownsville that officials say they will.
Etienne Rosas, a researcher and former congressional candidate who identifies as a Democratic Socialist, said the relationship between a community like Brownsville and big corporations like SpaceX is a toxic one.
“It’s sort of like dating a narcissist,” Rosas said.
Large companies may arrive with promises of community investment and good-paying jobs, but once they’re established, Rosas said, they prioritize their own fiscal growth over the community’s benefit.
“They just continue expanding their footprint,” he said. “And little by little, that’s how you get stagnant wages, which has happened throughout the country. That’s how you get a concentration of power that disallows you from being represented in your government.”
Instead of trying to court corporations, Rosas suggests city leaders invest in social programs that build a healthy working class to fill jobs in education, healthcare and renewable energy.
“The only constraint that we have is not of resources. It’s of political integrity and of political will,” Rosas said.
Preparing the workforce
Jason Medina was frustrated that the Rio Grande Valley kept losing workers to companies north of the region.
In 2023, he and his business partner, Marlene Martinez, opened STX Metal Trades, a trade school that trains workers in pipefitting. The job consists of assembling and installing piping systems that carry water, chemicals or gases.
It’s a dangerous and demanding profession, but pipe fitters are in high demand and continue to be needed for LNG and SpaceX projects.
“We knew that there wasn’t going to be enough pipefitters to support them. We knew that these projects were not here yet, but they were on the way, and we had to jump in front of this and do what we can,” Medina said.
STX partners with a halfway house in Brownsville to train workers and give them a second chance at a career.
“Some of our best, our most amazing success stories have come from the halfway houses,” Medina said. “We’re helping change lives one at a time.”
When he hears that a company like Saronic Technologies is interested in building its shipyard in Brownsville, Medina is excited about the opportunity to change more lives.
That said, he understands the drawbacks.
Medina said the criticisms like those expressed by Hinojosa are fair. He enjoys the wildlife and spending time on the beach, and is aware of the impact these companies could have on both. However, he believes there is a middle ground and said he knows these companies place a lot of effort into minimizing their footprint.
“We need these jobs. Brownsville has forever been labeled as the poorest city in the country, year after year,” Medina said. “Jobs like this are going to change that.”
In 2024, Brownsville’s median household income was $52,130, compared to the national median household income of $78,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
It also lags behind the country on education with more than 29% of people over 25 never graduating from high school, the fourth in the country. As of 2024, the number of people in Texas without a high school diploma was 13%.
But because of SpaceX and the LNG projects, Brownsville is known for something other than being among the poorest cities in the country, said Gilberto Salinas, president and CEO of the Greater Brownsville Economic Development Corporation.
When economic development officials meet with leaders of Fortune 500 companies, the conversations begin with Brownsville’s projects rather than the community’s poverty.
Landing these projects has become part of the economic development corporation’s formula for ensuring that Brownsville is successful in opportunity and job creation for locals, Salinas said.
He remembers all too well growing up in the Valley in the 1980s and how difficult it was to find job opportunities.
“I refuse for my community to go back to those days,” Salinas said.
Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.