CORPUS CHRISTI, TX — At a recent regularly scheduled meeting, Mayor Paulette M. Guajardo and the City Council awarded $258,341 to Halff Associates, Inc. for the Harbor Bridge Parks Mitigation area project. The project includes a professional services contract to perform a needs assessment and detail park improvements for the residential areas impacted by the Harbor Bridge project.

The park mitigation project addresses impacts to the former Washington Cole Elementary School site and the three existing City Parks: TC Ayers Park, Ben Garza Park, and Dr. H.J. Williams Memorial Park (Hillcrest Park). Funding for the project was added to Bond 2014 due to agreements between the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), the Metropolitan Planning Organization, and the City of Corpus Christi.

The timeline for the park planning project and initial design is 12 months. Halff and Associates' work will include community engagement, optional plan design, and alternatives analysis. Construction of the parks must be completed by the time the old Harbor Bridge is demolished. TxDOT has not announced a new timeline for the completion of the bridge.

The City of Corpus Christi is a multi-cultural community located 140 miles southeast of San Antonio on Corpus Christi Bay, an inlet off the Gulf of Mexico.