MARFA — Construction of a 3D-printed model home and hotel room has begun on the site of the new El Cosmico, an undeveloped 61-acre desert expanse located north of Marfa where hotelier Liz Lambert plans to establish a hotel, restaurant, pool, bathhouse and workshops in addition to homes available for purchase.
“The new El Cosmico is officially underway,” Lambert told The Big Bend Sentinel in a recent interview. “It’s beginning in a small way, but at least everybody will be about to see what the 3D-printed structure looks like, which is pretty exciting.”
Lambert announced plans to move El Cosmico, roughly doubling its current guest capacity while offering expanded services for guests and the public, in March of last year. It’s not your average building project, as structures — circular, modular modern forms — will be erected using new 3D printing technology. This month, contractor ICON — an Austin-based 3D printing construction company — began building a model home and hotel room on the new site located north of the Antelope Hills neighborhood.
Lambert said the intention behind the models is to generate buzz about the project and assist in hotel room design. “It’s great to have a model, not only to show people what’s going to happen, but also for us to use as a prototype,” Lambert said.
3D building is a new field being pioneered by ICON, which has leveraged the technology to build affordable housing for homeless individuals, military structures and is even working to bring 3D building to the moon in partnership with NASA. (The company is the subject of a 60 Minutes episode, where the new El Cosmico gets a mention for its “round hotel rooms” and “futuristic designer homes.”)
ICON is using a proprietary, low-carbon concrete mixture — made up of Texas-sourced materials such as sand, water and additives — that will have a “pigmented color to blend with the landscape of Marfa,” according to Lambert’s team. The material will be used to construct the hotel units, homes and other amenities which will be built on site.
“They will be actually printing straight onto the circular foundation,” Lambert said. “It’s like an inkjet printer with a cartridge going back and forth.”
While it was originally announced that there would be a total of 120 hotel rooms, Lambert said that number has since been scaled down to just under 100. The number of “Sunday Homes” has also been reduced to under 20 with each on an approximately one-acre lot. Reservations for those homes opened summer of 2023 and required down payments. Lambert said “a good number of them” have been reserved.
There is no exact timeline for when the project will be completed, Lambert said, as El Cosmico is still working on bringing utilities including electricity, water and sewer to the site. She said ICON is adhering to dark sky best practices and the 3D printing is quiet.
While there are outspoken opponents of the project, which display “Say No To El Cosmico” signs on their gates or write letters to the editor to this newspaper, for one of the new El Cosmico’s closest neighbors — Hector and Cristina Mendez — the impending installation of a luxury resort isn’t a cause for grave concern.
“In a nutshell, if it was inevitable that somebody was going to build something of this scale there, then at least it’s Liz Lambert,” Hector said. “I would hate to see the Marfa Hilton or something.”
Hector said he and his wife have been undisturbed by construction so far, and that while they have seen trucks entering the property while they are outside having their morning coffee, the land isn’t flat and they quickly drop out of view.
Lambert said she is in regular contact with Presidio County Judge Joe Portillo and incoming Precinct 1 County Commissioner Deirdre Hisler — who is also an Antelope Hills resident — about the project and encouraged people with questions to talk to ICON crews when possible and reach out to her and her team.
For now, construction crews are utilizing Antelope Hills Road. Conversations between the county and Lambert about creating a more direct route to El Cosmico, potentially through Vizcaino Park, have fizzled out but may pick up again, Portillo said.
“Anytime you have one way into a location and one way out, you’re looking for trouble, because there are going to be exigent circumstances,” Portillo said. “Me, as a public servant, recognizing the responsibilities of EMS, fire and the police, my short answer is, yes, you need it.”
Lambert said she is holding out hope that a more commercial entrance to the property can be achieved.
Also currently up in the air is the status of routing utilities including electricity, water and sewer to the site. There is existing electricity in the area operated by American Electric Power that may be connected to the site, Lambert said. Portillo said the county is working to help El Cosmico connect three-phase energy to their property, including assessing right of ways on adjacent county property.
The City of Marfa’s existing water services to the area only include two small service connections to properties on the western border of Antelope Hills, but there are no water mains extending to the area, and the city’s furthest wastewater connection is to the Marfa Villa apartments on Golf Course Road.
But, because of a Public Utility Commission statute referred to as a “certificate of conscience and necessity,” which Lambert referenced in interviews with The Sentinel, the City of Marfa will be required by law to provide water and wastewater services to the new El Cosmico because it is still located within their service area. The City of Marfa’s CCN is “ginormous,” and long-established, said City Manager Mandy Roane, a much larger district compared to the City of Alpine.
The financial responsibility for extending services to the new resort will be on El Cosmico, Lambert explained. “We’d be paying for everything to bring our connection to the city, and then we retain the city for the services,” she said.
In the meantime, groundwater will be pumped from a well on site for construction and “any ancillary water needs,” Lambert said.
Roane said the city’s engineers are in the process of assessing adding the new El Cosmico to the city’s water and wastewater services, but because they are not in-house and have other clients, the process is slow going. One of the issues engineers are assessing is whether or not existing systems have the capacity to take on the project. Roane said it is possible existing systems will require upgrades to meet increased demand.
“The engineers and El Cosmico have been exchanging information for a couple of months to make sure we all have a clear picture of what their system is going to look like and what the city will need to do to get everything up and running on our end,” Roane said.
Roane said the city is aware of the CCN and has every intention of following it, but the process cannot be rushed. “What we will not do, however, is put in a system of this size without making sure everything has been okayed by our engineers and that all of their questions and possible concerns are addressed,” Roane said.
The initiative to build affordable housing for hotel staff on the old El Cosmico site, which will also be 3D printed by ICON, is “in the background” Lambert said, but is moving forward. The existing El Cosmico is set to be open until the summer of 2025, she said.
Both Portillo and Hisler told The Sentinel they are backing the project, in part because Lambert has served the community well, they said, and because the county is struggling financially and can only be aided by the creation of more taxable property.
“I have no reason to believe that they wouldn’t continue to provide five-star tourism and business and be good for the economy,” Portillo said.
Hisler said Lambert has generated good will by stating that she intends to continue to pay hotel occupancy tax to the city even though it will not be required by law because the new El Cosmico is located outside of the city limits and the Extra Territorial Jurisdiction. And now that the 61-acre property has been identified, it is inevitable that someone will build on it, she added.
“Texas is a private property state, and that project is going to happen. The county has no type of power to keep it from happening,” Hisler said. “When this project is realized, and when they start paying property taxes, if folks realize what an infusion of monetary resources that will be for our county so that we can continue operating at a level that really takes care of our community as we are charged to do.”
This story was originally published in The Big Bend Sentinel on August 1, 2024
Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the existing El Cosmico currently pays Hotel Occupancy Tax even though it is not required to because it is located outside of city limits. However, the property is within the Extra Territorial Jurisdiction (ETJ), meaning it is required by law to pay HOT taxes. Hotelier Liz Lambert said she intends to continue to pay HOT taxes at the new location north of town, even though that is not required by law. We regret the error.
