STEALTH MARTINEZ SELLING CUETO BLDG. TO UT SYSTEM

By Juan Montoya
For several weeks now (or is it months) Mayor Tony Martinez has been negotiating for the City of Brownsville to sell the historic Cueto Building to the University of Texas System.
In what could be considered a real-estate musical chair game, that property on 1301 Madison has been purchased from the city by the UT-UTB "partnership" under former president Julieta Garcia, sold back to the city (with improvements to it and the buil;ding enxt door), and now might go back to the UT System, some say for a song.
This is about par for the course for Martinez, a mayor who will be remembered for his under-the-table real estate deals of dubious value to the city he represents.
One only need look south two blocks fro the Cueto Building to see the shell of the Casa del Nylon which Martinez bought from his friend Abraham Galonsky for $2.3 million to see his handiwork. According to city insiders, Martinez told the city commission at the time that the university was interested in buying the property from the city after the purchase. In was only after the deal was consummated that they found out that no such interest existed in the UT System and the city was stuck with the building.
Today, it remains boarded up.
However, insiders say that the negotiations have been underway away from the public eye and that no deal has been struck.
A cursory check of the Cameron County Appraisal District records indicates the building is appraised at about $176,000.
However, as part of the city's historical heritage, some feel that the transaction should have been made public and that the residents who paid for it (and the property next door including the $90,000 concrete parking lot) through Certificates of Obligation, should have a say in whether they want to get rid of the building.
The Cueto Building is described as a fine example of late 19th Century South Texas commercial architecture.
The building was constructed in 1893 to house the expanding grocery and mercantile, retail and wholesale business of Don Andres Cueto (1862-1927), a native of Spain.
"La Nueva Libertad," as the business was known, included a retail store, storerooms, a carriage house, and domed brick bakery ovens. Prominent features of the building include its corbelled brick cornice and parapet.
On March 2014, Martinez and city attorney Mark Sossi directed the commission to the purchase of the parking lot besides the Cueto Building.
The Cueto Building was purchased form Texas Southmost College for $500,000, but lacked a parking lot.
Right next to the Cueto Building is a smaller home called the Lucena House. That's currently housing United Brownsville's Director Mike Gonzales and his staff (a secretary?). However, without a parking lot, they – and the personnel of the Center for Civic Engagement at the Cueto Building – had to park their BMWs on the street.
They found one next door at 1335 East Madison owned by Oscar Muñoz that had a dilapidated trailer and two duplexes that had seen better days. The land covered three lots but only the rear of the lots were used, leaving the entire front of the property unused.
They hired a local appraiser – Landmark Appraisal Company – to perform the required pre-purchase appraisal to determine the price. After the appraisal was performed, the value was placed at $155,000. However, the asking price for the property was about $100,000 more than that.
Martinez found way around it.
Why not rent (at $2,500 a month) for a few year (three, to be exact) until the difference ($90,000) between asking price and fair market value was paid by the city and then exercise the option to buy the land at the appraised value?
All told, between the $500,000 paid to TSC and the $250,000 that we will pay to Muñoz, it cost the citizens of Brownsville three-quarters of a million to give Da Mayor and United Brownsville new digs and a deluxe parking lot. But when the university leased it, they constructed a shabby parking lot that the city had to reconstruct and spent another $90,000.
According to the local daily, "In lieu of paying $10 per square foot annually in rent, the terms of the lease stipulate that the tenant will make parking lot improvements to the property adjacent to the leased property. The lease also dictates that there are four one-year options included in the lease, each with a base rate of $10 per square foot annually or about $92,580 per year."
When the new UT-RGV university was formed, it used the building to house the so-called "institute of the Americas," a make-work gig until they found where they wanted to put Julieta. 
Should Martinez be allowed to go through with this real-estate deal again, or will the residents who have shelled out all this cash for his speculation be given a voice in the matter?