EL PASO – In its day, this corner of West Texas was a crown jewel of the West. A railroad stop halfway between Dallas and Los Angeles, it was a haven for tourists and curiosity seekers.

A tourist could catch a glimpse of the Mexican Revolution from the relative safety of the city's Chihuahuita neighborhood just south of downtown El Paso at the turn of the 20th century.

AP

El Paso's downtown still lures some shoppers, but city planners are aiming for a better mix of stores, entertainment venues and homes.

Fifty years later, folks would flock to the border city for a chance to gamble and carouse in nearby Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, or take advantage of loose divorce laws that could end a marriage in under 5 minutes. Rumors abound that those visitors included Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Anthony Quinn.

But the heyday has been gone for 50 years. And now some city leaders hope to follow a national trend of fixing a broken downtown that was once the heart and soul of the city.

The renewal effort, entirely financed by private investment, was approved in October after months of contentious debate and public relations campaigns.

Some want to build a publicly financed arena, but city leaders say a project like that would only be viable if a tenant was set before construction started. Tax money could also be used for some infrastructure improvements.

City Councilman Steve Ortega said the project boasts the rare combination of private sector and popular support after long debate over how to fix downtown.

"There have been 53 plans in the last 50 years," Ortega said. "Now you have a business community that is ready to finance most of the plan, whereas (before) most of the plan was left to the public sector."

Those other incarnations, Ortega said, were halfhearted efforts doomed to fail. Today's version, El Paso Downtown 2015, includes plans for new shops, entertainment venues and apartments and lofts in a "mixed use" development that could attract residents, shoppers and tourists.

"Downtown renovation doesn't happen piecemeal," Ortega said. "It happens with a combination of residential options, viable commercial options, cultural options and also with several, what I could call gem projects."

El Paso is just one of a number of cities nationwide trying to restore the glory of its city center. Leaders here could take a lesson from their neighbors in San Antonio, with its hugely successful Riverwalk, or Fort Worth, which transformed its stock yards and another district from blighted, abandoned areas to vibrant and popular districts. Houston, using the 2004 Superbowl and the city's first public rail-transit as inspirations, recently re-created its downtown.

Thom Mayne, a California architect and professor at the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture, said that if El Paso keeps in mind residents' desires and the city's advantages – history, culture and Mexico a few blocks away – the plan should succeed.

He warned, though, that city leaders must steer clear of trying to simply recreate what once was.

"The solution is going to be some combination of old and new," Mayne said. "They will need people who can think in contemporary terms and that will build on (El Paso's) history."

The El Paso effort, which so far has cost the city about $250,000 in planning costs, appears to have the popular support Ortega mentioned.

But there are some vocal detractors, including three of the eight City Council members.

Some area business and land owners oppose the use of eminent domain to buy property in part of the 300-acre swath of land targeted in the plan.

Marvin Rosenbaum, leader of the anti-eminent domain campaign, said city leaders are setting the city up for years of costly lawsuits.

The city has agreed to hold off any eminent domain seizures for a year, and Mayor John Cook wants to nullify eminent domain for the downtown project.

Others told the council they feared that their barely affordable rental homes would be replaced by newer apartments, lofts and condos they couldn't afford.

Nancy Green, who grew up in a downtown neighborhood called El Segundo Barrio, part of which is included in the proposed development area, called the plan racist.

"It is a racist attempt to disperse residents of Mexican and Chicano descent," Green told the council last month.

Supporters have denied any such effort in the city that is nearly 80 percent Hispanic. Ortega said the redevelopment effort is designed to keep low-income residents in the area and is expected to add about 500 homes where rents will be determined by income. That addition more than doubles the current number of available options in the area for the poor.

City Councilwoman Melina Castro, who voted against the plan, said she looks forward to a new and improved downtown, but wants to know more about what it will cost.

"Everyone would love to have a great downtown. But the issue is, we don't know how much it is going to cost taxpayers," Castro said. "This is what I consider corporate welfare."

Councilman Beto O'Rourke and Ortega have argued that any public financing will be minimal. And any tax money that does go toward the project would be more than recouped with new tax money generated by higher property values and more businesses, O'Rourke said.

"If it doesn't work, downtown will get worse," said Fred M. Morales, an El Paso historian who has written several books about the city and Ciudad Juarez. "This will be the last opportunity possible for the city to go forward."