SpaceX is taking up space in Brownsville, forever changing the city.

BROWNSVILLE, TX — From the moment you touch down in Brownsville you’ll start to see the influence of SpaceX.

Even from the moment you walk outside of the Brownsville Airport. You’ll be greeted by a lawn ornament from SpaceX — a forward flap from SN 15 on display.

There are plans to move a prototype to be on display at the airport soon. CEO of SpaceX Elon Musk proposed the idea via Twitter.

There’s also a vibrant mural of Elon Musk in downtown.

The influence and change from SpaceX was a main focus of the recent State of the City address, given by Mayor Trey Mendez.

“The city of Brownsville welcomes new and expanding businesses in the aerospace industry to invest in our community,” said Jessica Tetreau, Brownsville County Commissioner.

“I couldn’t talk about growth without talking about SpaceX,” said Mayor Trey Mendez.

In the state of the city address, Brownsville Mayor Trey Mendez revealed SpaceX is now the city’s largest private employer.

But it’s not all roses and rockets.

Some residents of the South Texas beach town say billionaire Elon Musk is ruining their “little piece of heaven”.

I reached out to realtor Craig Grove, owner of Starbase Realty, who has seen the transformation of the town over the last decade . He was able to provide me with some great insight.

“I guess go back a little bit, I am a real estate broker, I’ve been here since 2012. I have been a huge fan of space since even before I was a real estate broker,” said Craig Grove.

Craig says when he moved to Brownsville from Austin over a decade ago, he saw the potential of the small town.

“Border of the United States, the Gulf of Mexico, we have the port, we have rail, I didn’t even think of space. We have all these amazing attributes that other people would kill to have…Why are we so resistant to change?,” said Grove.

He started Brownsville Living on Facebook in 2011 to try and encourage the local community to celebrate the positives.

This was long before SpaceX broke ground.

In fact, private discussions between SpaceX and various officials about a future private launch site began at least as early as 2011.

“I was actually helping them to promote their environmental impact studies through social media back in 2011. I just knew it was going to be a complete game changer for Brownsville,” said Grove.

SpaceX publicly announced in August 2014 that they had decided on Texas as the location for their new non-governmental launch site.

And site soil work began in 2015, but it would take three years to begin major construction to begin.

“A lot of us were thinking what happened because it went radio silent for years,” said Grove.

Building a feasible site on sand on a beach was an arduous task.

Howver by 2019, rocket engine testing and flight testing began.

In March of 2021, Elon tweeted that he wanted to create a city encompassing Boca Chica Village and the surrounding area called ‘Starbase’.

“When I saw that Elon came out with the name Starbase, I thought oh, that’s pretty cool,” said Grove.

Craig says expanding upon his already successful brokerage, he decided to start Starbase Realty, dedicated to the South Texas spaceport of the future.

“The main point of the brand is really to cater to SpaceX interest, whether it be people thinking of relocating to here, or people wanting to invest here and really google searches,” said Grove.

Elon put out a message urging people to move to the area last year tweeting, “Please consider moving to Starbase or greater Brownsville/South Padre area in Texas & encourage friends to do so! SpaceX’s hiring needs for engineers, technicians, builders & essential support personnel of all kinds are growing rapidly.”

And, the people are coming…

“Lets just say for one SpaceX employee who buys a house, typically that’s a 300K house. So that’s money that Elon didn’t directly invest, but one house being built for a SpaceX person results in money coming into our economy,” said Grove.

But with that influx of people, also comes a rising cost.

“To throw all the housing increases on SpaceX, is not true…have they had impact? Yes, but you have to factor in all elements,” said Grove.

Like historically low interest rates.

“I will say over the last two years, we’ve seen some property values go up 40 percent due to all the variables… SpaceX is one of them. Are there people that have legitimate complaints? Absolutely, any time you have an economic development, there are going to be people that are left out,” said Grove.

Craig was recently interviewed by Business Insider about locals upset seeing real estate ads targeting SpaceX employees.

“You have to understand that Business Insider has a certain lean, they cover Elon negatively. They’re not a fan of traditional business development so, this isn’t the first article they’ve done with this kinda lean…What we’ve seen with a lot of the media that come down here is they’re all trying to come with this anti-SpaceX lean to them. The majority of people that I know are very much in support of SpaceX,” said Grove.

I asked him if most SpaceX employees were buying or renting.

“It’s really hard to quantify that data, because obviously there’s no central repository for who is buying, but in my experience most are buying. I’ve had people come here, buy a house a six months later, and sell for a profit because they transferred out,” said Grove.

Not only is SpaceX creating new jobs related to the housing market, they’re also creating new opportunities for youth in the area.

“Who could forget the tweet heard about the world last March from Elon Musk, where he committed $20 million to Cameron County schools, and $10 million to Brownsville for downtown revitalization,” said Mayor Trey Mendez.

He continued, “A recent economic impact study shows SpaceX invested $430 million in operations in Cameron County alone last year.”

In 2022, they’re projecting to add $885 million in gross economic output and continued job growth in Cameron County.

As we get closer to the first orbital launch of Starship, possibly as soon as July, more people are making the pilgrimage to Starbase to see history in the making.

“You know, from an environmental perspective, maybe its not the best place to launch rockets, but that area was neglected before SpaceX came down there,” said Grove.

Locals are also impacted by beach closures, however more clean ups have been orchestrated at the beach since the presence of SpaceX.

And while not everyone is a fan, Craig says more people are coming around to accepting and even celebrating the changes in the area.

“Ive seen the negativity, I’ve never understood it but there’s starting to be a lot more people proud to be here,” said Grove.