AEP Texas opens new facitlity in Alice

Juan A. Navejar Jr.

AEP Texas opened a state of the art strategically located new facility in Alice with its official Grand Opening on Wednesday, April 17^th.
“We stared this project in February 2018 with help of the city and the county we got it done within our deadline. Through this investment, we want to show our commitment to Alice and the surrounding communities, Todd Coad, Vice President of Distribution Regional Operations said. “It is designed to stand strong in creating an emergency command center in case of a storm.”
AEP Texas is here to stay for years to come Coad said.
The new building sits on 13.6 acres tract and is 40,377 square feet allowing for potential growth.
The new facility was 20 month in construction with the help of the city and the count.
“We started in February of 2018 with the help of some key officials were able to complete this project on time if it was not for the help of Alice City Manager Michael Esparza who helped mot this project forward with the city staff and permits,” Patrick King with AEP Texas said. “I could not speak more highly of the city staff and the mayor who helped us make this a huge success in completing on time.”  
 The new state of the art facility is built to stand hurricane winds to make it an ideal location during a hurricane in moving its emergency command center to Alice.
“Today is about positive energy and growth and the positive energy from AEP.  It takes a team to build and be successful. We give special thanks to the lineman who keep us going. During Hurricane Harvey they were there to guide us. They are the unsung heroes, the guys who deal with the lines each day. They are in the midst of the storm and always keeping us safe,” Alice Mayor Jolene Vanover said. “We had a power outage a couple of month ago and AEP kept us informed and were able to give updates to our citizens. We depend on them to keep us going. Kudos to them to make us feel safe and secure. It’s a team effort. Thank you for seeing Alice as being an important place to house this amazing building and to say that Alice is where we need to be and continue to grow.”