New marine research facility approved

The University of Texas System Board of Regents approved on Feb. 20 the construction of the UTRGV Port Isabel Marine Ecosystems Research Facility. 

Guy Bailey, president of UTRGV, said he is proud of the approval because of the productive research conducted at Port Isabel.

“​​They’re in portable buildings; that’s kind of like trailer homes, and it’s not really appropriate in that environment,” Bailey said.

He said the university was approved to build a first-class facility and seven significant research labs with other appropriate spaces.

“It’ll make a huge difference for our research and for the graduate students who work down there,” Bailey said.

He said the new facility would benefit the School of Earth, Environment and Marine Sciences because it will give its productive researchers facilities that will enhance their competitiveness for grants, and it will help them recruit graduate students.

“I think this is a wonderful addition to our campus and to our facilities,” Bailey said.

Roldan Valverde, director of the School of Earth, Environment and Marine Sciences, said he expects the facility will develop more research in different coastal areas, such as Laguna Madre at South Padre Island and in the Gulf of Mexico, providing enhanced training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students.

“Right now, what we have is portables, and the portables are not functioning properly,” Valverde said. “We have many problems with maintenance. … It’s exposed to fluctuations in humidity, in temperature. The power is not stable, so we want to make sure that we can provide our researchers an adequate facility where they can develop the programs.” 

The Board of Regents will meet in March for the approval of the draft of the facility. In May, another meeting is expected to take place to approve the draft at the state level. If those two meetings are cleared, construction is expected to start in July.

“If that goes according to plan, then the facility will be pretty much finalized by December of 2026 and should be able to move in by January 2027,” Valverde said.

He said the original cost was $11 million but went up to $20-$21 million.

“We hope that it’s not going to be increased because it just becomes more and more difficult to accomplish,” Valverde said.

Erin Easton, assistant professor and director of the Marine Ecosystems Institute (MEI), said the division of research was established in Fall 2024 and will be dedicated to student access and success.

“We plan to advance integrative education, training research and community engagement across the marine ecosystem sciences, which include areas such as biology, chemistry, geology, physics, oceanography, human dimensions, natural resource management, climate change, among other areas of marine ecosystem sciences,” Easton said.

She said the MEI is located at the Port Isabel facilities because most of the marine science faculty is there.

“We’re hoping in March, we’ll be approved to have a new building for new lab space developed to replace our existing lab space,” Easton said.

She added working in portables comes with limitations.

“To have a brick-and-mortar building will really help substantially for us to have the capacity to do more outreach,” Easton said.

The director said the Port Isabel facilities have a lot of potential to grow and could have visitors, a living shoreline and educational spaces. 

“Those aren’t part of the current plan, but we’re hopeful that one day we’ll be able to incorporate that,” she said. “… We need to have the capacity to be competitive and, in the marine ecosystem sciences, there’s a lot of technology involved.”

–Pete Mendoza contributed to this story.