EL PASO, Tx., April 13, 2026: El Paso City Council is scheduled to vote on an agreement tomorrow to help raise private funds for a proposed deck park downtown. The Downtown Deck Plaza Foundation, established last year, seeks to raise funds to put a deck park over I-10 near downtown. The Foundation is a “supporting organization of the Paso del Norte Community Foundation.” The PDNG Community Foundation has been active for years funding projects in El Paso, including the Plaza Theater in 2006, its first marquee downtown project. Many of the projects supported by the PDNG Community Foundation require funding mechanisms that include taxpayer dollars. The Plaza Theater was reopened after the city council voted in 2002 to use downtown parking meter fees to help pay for the $38 million renovation project.
According to the deck park’s foundation, the Texas Department of Transportation has allocated $500 million to reconstruct I-10 from Spur 66 to downtown. The people behind the deck park project are hoping to raise funds to build a “green cap” over the downtown portion of the I-10 project. In 2021, the City of El Paso and the Foundation received $900,000 to conduct a feasibility study for putting a park over the I-10 downtown corridor.
The deck proponents say that the economic impact feasibility study found that building the deck park would “generate nearly $1 billion in total economic output over 30 years” for El Paso. The feasibility study also found that building the deck park will cost about $239 million, including the retaining walls to support it. They say that they have raised around $74 million towards the project including $35 million in “private philanthropy to support park amenities” that have been committed but not yet secured…