Press Releases
Safety town: Youngsters to learn about life's dangers
By Michael D. Hernandez / El Paso Times
Posted: 05/28/2009 12:00:00 AM MDT
EL PASO -- Sylvia Price is hoping that lessons on how to be safe at home and on the streets will reach a second generation of her family.
She plans to take two grandsons to the 43rd annual Safety Town, which will offer free guidance to children ages 5 and 6 beginning June 8 at Bassett Place.
"I thought since the boys were going to be spending the summer with me, this would be a good recreational activity and provide some education for them," she said.
Participants in Safety Town learn about fire safety, traffic safety, stray animal precautions and stranger danger. Children also are taught about the perils of drug use.
The program will run through July 31. Each graduate will receive a diploma and a bicycle helmet.
The weekly classes feature presentations by El Paso police officers as well as other law enforcement officials.
East El Paso police this year are not offering the Safety Town program that had become a tradition at the Pebble Hills Regional Command Center.
Instead, police officials said, they want children to attend the classes offered at Bassett Place.
Gabriel Sida, a neighborhood relations coordinator for the Pebble Hills Regional Command Center, said Safety Town also shows children how to trust police officers.
Price, who took her daughters to Safety Town decades ago and has saved their graduation caps, said the program shows children what to do whenever a crisis erupts.
She encourages other parents to take their children to the classes.
"It's a good program because they are around other children and because they are learning who the good guys are," she said.
Michael D. Hernandez may be reached at mhernandez@elpasotimes.com; 546-6151.
Bassett Place lines up new tenants: Mall adds Kohl's, Taco Tote, Casa Bella
By David Burge / El Paso Times
Posted: 01/12/2009 07:43:25 PM MST
Bassett Place General Manager Alejandra Contreras and Perspective Associate Jesus A Alfonso Ortega look over the new building plans for the newest Taco Tote which will be opening in what housed the Steak & Ale Restaurant previously. (Ruben R. Ramirez / El Paso Times)
El PASO -- Bassett Place has moved quickly to fill vacant space created by the bankruptcies of three national chains.
Kohl's announced last week that it had purchased the lease for the Mervyns store at Bassett, but didn't say when its new store would open at the East-Central mall.
El Paso-based regional restaurant chain El Taco Tote will renovate the building that was once occupied by Steak & Ale and plans to open in May at the 5,200-square-foot building in the Bassett parking lot.
The third new tenant is locally owned Casa Bella Home Furn ishings, which will close its East Side store at 1145 Westmoreland by mid-month and reopen by Feb. 1 at Bassett in the building formerly occupied by Shoe Pavilion.
"We're fortunate to fill in the blank spaces at Bassett with a good tenant mix that will benefit our customers from El Paso, Mexico and Fort Bliss," mall Marketing Manager Marguerite Byers said.
Kohl's will begin renovating the interior of the Mervyns store within the next 30 days, Byers added.
Westsider Rachel Paxson shops at Bassett Place three or four times a month, usually during her lunch hour at work and sometimes on the weekends.
"I love Kohl's, and Taco Tote is one of my favorites," she said. "Kohl's is like an upscale Mervyns, and they don't have one in Central. (Bassett Place) is a perfect location for a great retail store."
The mall, 6101 Gateway West at Geronimo, opened in 1962 as an open-air center and was enclosed in 1974. Bassett has been owned for the past five years by C.E. Bassett 1 LP, a division of Dallas real-estate company Cypress Equities.
The center was originally called Bassett Center but changed its name to Bassett Place in fall 2004.
Pacifico Heras, founder and president of El Taco Tote, which has five restaurants in El Paso, five in Juárez and another 12 family-owned or franchise locations throughout the Southwest and Mexico, said Bassett Place presented a great opportunity for his company to expand.
The Heras family will have the former Steak & Ale building renovated to give the new El Taco Tote a more upscale atmosphere, Heras said.
"This will be a very important location for our image and concept," Heras said.
But they plan to continue to provide "the same high quality food and service, and hopefully better," he said.
Karla Heras, director of operations, said the company has "always wanted a location near Interstate 10."
"There were other people who wanted to get into Steak & Ale," said Karla Heras, Pacifico's niece. "This is a great opportunity for us. I also think it's good for Bassett Place to have a local business that's been in the market for 20 years, and it's a good thing for us."
The restaurant will employ 45 people and will seat 188 inside and another 72 on a new outdoor patio. The restaurant will also have a drive-through.
"We've gotten to where we are thanks to all our loyal customers," Karla Heras said.
The El Paso market seems to be doing better than many other places in the United States and "has been very good to us," Karla Heras added.
Pacifico Heras said he believes the economy will rebound in 2009. "That's the reason we're making this investment in this project," he said.
El Taco Tote opened its first restaurant in Juárez in 1988, its first U.S. location in Laredo, Texas, in 1994 and its first El Paso eatery, 2921 N. Mesa, in 1996.
El Paso architecture and construction company Perspectiva is doing the renovation. Project Manager Federico Fernandez said the goal is to create a "more elegant" version of El Taco Tote.
"We want to make sure that when people come into this location they don't remember what was here before and they say, 'Wow, this is totally different,' " Fernandez said.
El Taco Taco is owned and operated by Pacifico Heras in partnership with his six brothers, his niece Karla and nephew Hector Jr.
Kohl's spokeswoman Kristen Cunningham said the Wisconsin-based chain has acquired 31 closed Mervyns stores, including the one at Bassett Place.
"We assessed the portfolio (of Mervyns stores) that were available, and we selected those that would best serve our under-penetrated markets," she said.
Kohl's has two El Paso stores, 1319 George Dieter at Las Palmas Marketplace and 5680 N. Desert.
Mervyns also operated stores at Sunland Park Mall and Yarbrough Plaza before closing its national operations in late December. Those stores were not included in Kohl's purchase, according to a list provided by the company.
University of Texas at El Paso economics professor Tom Fullerton said the new tenants at Bassett "reflect ongoing strength" for the mall.
"All the companies that closed their operations at Bassett Place we're headquartered elsewhere and went bankrupt due to problems that occurred at locations other than El Paso," Fullerton said. "Given that, the closures didn't represent any underlying weakness within the Bassett Place retail site.
"Because it receives so much traffic from Montana, Geronimo and Interstate 10, it's not surprising that all three store locations have been targeted by new tenants." Casa Bella Home Furnishings, owned by El Pasoans John and Martha Salom, expects to see its traffic increase when the company moves its East Side operations to Bassett Place.
"This is a much better location," Martha Salom said. "We always had trouble with people trying to find us over there (on Westmoreland near Landry's Seafood House).
"The reason we've been able to do so well is word of mouth. Ninety percent of our customers come from word of mouth."
The Saloms have another Casa Bella store at 500 N. Zaragoza in the Lower Valley, which will remain open.
They plan to hire seven more employees for the 25,000-square-foot Bassett Place store. They already employ 23 at their two stores.
David Burge may be reached at dburge@elpasotimes.com; 546-6126.
