Blog Post 5: Present and future of the Brownsville Downtown - Replica (Scale 1:400)

The core historic downtown Brownsville circled in yellow. Roughly 40-50 blocks.

I'm two years into my Brownsville Downtown - Replica project and have decided that I will design and print about 40-50 blocks of the historic downtown. Hard to believe that a city like Brownsville would have such a large downtown that is mostly dense and many of the original and history buildings still exist. And even outside of the core downtown there a lot of historical buildings and homes. Maybe one day I will include it.

What's Next?

Brownsville is very unique in that there's a lot of interesting areas and not just the downtown. We are located right on the Mexican-American border with our border sister city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas MX. There are three international bridges and soon a fourth, which will be a pedestrian only bridge. There's also in the near future a fifth international bridge coming up. Then there's the Mitte cultural district that encompasses the Glady's Porter Zoo, Children's Museum of Brownsville, historic Linear Park, and other amenities. Palm Blvd has many historical homes, beautiful palm trees that line the boulevard and historical buildings as well. The Amigoland Mall area that was supposed to be home to the never built Aztecland theme park. the new airport with a cool wavy design and a flap from SpaceX Starship V1 in front of the airport, the Port of Brownsville, UTRGV and TSC historical campus, Spacex and the newly created town of Starbase. Not to mention Boca Chica beach. Some 20 mile distance lies the fun beach resort of South Padre Island.

Circled in yellow: Top-right is the oldest bridge in Texas called the B&M International bridge, middle-right is the Gateway Int'l bridge (will receive an $200M upgrade and will include a separate $50M pedestrian bridge) and bottom-left side is the Veteran's Int'l bridge that connects directly to I-69 interstate highway.

Circled in yellow: The UTRGV and Texas Southmost College (TSC) campuses

Yellow: Brownsville, TX population 200,000 Red: Matamoros, MX population 500,000 Blue: Starbase, TX SpaceX Brown: Brownsville airport Beige: Port of Brownsville 17-mile long shipping channel

Yellow: Glady's Porter Zoo, will be getting an expansion soon. Red: Children's Museum of Brownsville. Beige: Mitti Cultural District. White: Federal Court House. White: Historic Brownsville Museum

Yellow: Never built Azrecland theme park. Blue: Amigoland Mall closed in 2000. Green: B&M Int'l Bridge

Would be cool to recreate all of these areas but I'm only one person and not possible to recreate every interesting aspect of Brownsville. But here's a list I plan to work on as a current and future design and 3d print. Not in a particular order but I will start where I will likely go into the future.

• Core Downtown Brownsville 40-50 blocks - currently under construction

• TSC and UTRGV campus

• Aztecland-Amigoland Mall area

• Mitti Cultural District

• Brownsville Int'l Airport

• Port of Brownsville

• Starbase, TX SpaceX launch pad and manufacturing site

• South Padre Island (SPI) Causeway and part of the island

Future Future

• San Antonio, TX Riverwalk area

Next Up...Blog Post 6: Opening a Souvenir Store in downtown