On March 26, 2009, we spent 4 hours on a “monster truck” with Mike Rhodes, president of Rhodes Enterprise and owner of Bentsen Palm Development in the City of Mission, Texas. 10 of us toured part of Mike’s 2600 acre property and learned about his vision of the community he is developing. Having retired from the meatpacking industry at a young age, Mike became a land developer in the Rio Grande Valley after touring the country in an RV with his family.
Mike built the Bentsen Palm Village RV resort next to the Bentsen Rio-Grande State Park at a cost of $ 5 million when the State Park decided to discontinue RV camping within its boundaries. The RV resort is landscaped with native trees and shrubs, each designed to attract certain birds, bees and butterflies and is one of the most beautiful resorts we have seen. Mike donated money to secure the World Birding Centre Headquarters in the State park and also donated land for the establishment of the North American Butterfly Association butterfly park which is part of his planned development.
Mike’s property includes 2 miles of frontage along the Rio Grande River which we explored with him. He has built a picnic area for his campers and residents and will soon complete a boat dock for his canoes, kayaks and soon to be purchased pontoon boat. Much of his land is still being farmed and he explained to us about the necessity of irrigation and the subsidies that farmers receive for growing sugar cane.
We were glad that Mike explained the reason that a $60 million levy had been build between the Rio Grande River and his property. Apparently according to FEMA, since land is in the floodplain all landowners would need to buy flood insurance. Engineering studies done by a joint U.S. Mexican commission disproved FEMA’s theory and emphatically stated that since the Mexican shoreline is much lower, it would flood but the U.S. side would not. FEMA ignored this study but did offer an alternative - the residents and the City of Mission could build this strange looking levy that divided property and appeared to be quite useless. The City of Mission was able to recoup the $60 million by applying to another U.S. agency that was distributing economic stimulus money – sounds like the Canadian government, doesn’t it.
Our last stop was Retama Village, his ACTIVE-ADULT community built as an age-restricted and privacy-gated community. In Retama Village, you can purchase an RV site with a “coach house” – a 12 X 12 shed complete with plumbing, with prices starting at $44,000 U.S. He is also building one and two bedroom homes, complete with an RV port which contains full hook-ups for your rig. What an interesting concept – you don’t need a large home because you can use your RV for additional space when you have guests!
Bentsen Palm Development also contains several single-family home developments and will include another “over 55” development. Mike has also build a charter school on his property which is part of the “Idea School” network in the Rio Grande Valley – in addition to becoming a land developer, he is also now an educator.
We were fascinated by Mike’s energy and vision to develop a Master Planned Community based on eco-tourism and habitat restoration. If we ever win the lottery, we might even think about Retama Village – the small homes with an RV-port are really lovely!!
To see our pictures of this day : http://picasaweb.google.com/pjkralik/MikeSTour
Jane & Paul
For more info on Bentsen Palms see: http://bentsenpalm.com/
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