(C) El Paso Matters.org This story was originally published by El Paso Matters.org and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . A deck park in Downtown El Paso could cost hundreds of millions. Who will pay for it? [1] ['Diego Mendoza-Moyers', 'More Diego Mendoza-Moyers', 'El Paso Matters', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width'] Date: 2024-08-04 It would cost at least $207 million to build the long-proposed deck plaza that would sit atop a capped Interstate 10 in Downtown El Paso and span multiple blocks, from Santa Fe Street east to Kansas Street, according to the Paso del Norte Community Foundation. The foundation, the deck park’s main backer, on Tuesday unveiled the first cost estimate for the outdoor space. It would likely be built around the same time as a separate, $1 billion project in which the state’s transportation agency will repair I-10 Downtown, and widen the highway with an extra lane. “It’s better than I expected,” Tracy Yellen, CEO of the nonprofit Paso del Norte Community Foundation, said of the estimated price tag. “Looking at other projects in other communities of this size and scope, it’s in-line with what they’ve cost in other places, in some cases less.” The foundation, which acts as a vehicle for donors to contribute to local causes and nonprofits, created the Downtown Deck Plaza Foundation to promote the idea and “work with public and private partners” to achieve it, according to its website. The Deck Plaza Foundation helped secure a $900,000 federal grant with matching funds that paid for a feasibility study that produced the cost estimate. An aerial rendering depicting what the downtown deck plaza may look like. (Paso Del Norte Community Foundation) On the top floor of the Blue Flame Building Downtown on Tuesday evening, the foundation and its consultant Stantec presented conceptual images that show the deck plaza spanning five city blocks in length. It had numerous features such as a dog park, gardens, a police substation, a performance stage and a sports “fieldhouse,” among others. Several plots of land in the park were left blank – slated only as “future development” – which brought down the cost estimate. The Paso del Norte Community Foundation proposed splitting up construction into two phases. The first phase would involve building the plaza from Santa Fe to Mesa streets at a cost of $105.3 million. The second phase, from Mesa to Kansas streets, would cost an estimated $101.5 million. It’s not without controversy. The project to repair I-10 and add a lane in the Downtown segment could increase the number of cars on the road and boost air and noise pollution in the area, opponents of the I-10 project argue. Plus, virtually all of the city’s long-term urban plans call to make the city more dense and walkable, rather than becoming more car-friendly by adding lanes to the highway that will encourage more people to drive than if the lane wasn’t added. And opponents see the deck plaza as a way to make the expanded highway project more palatable to the public. El Pasoans leave feedback on their vision of the community during a meeting on the downtown deck plaza proposal, July 30, 2024. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters) “The Sunset Heights Neighborhood Improvement Association opposes the unnecessary widening of I-10, which will take years to complete and bring additional pollution, noise, heat, and the nonstop rumble of traffic that can be felt deep into the neighborhood,” the group said in a statement. “A deck amenity that encourages new residents to live in the neighborhoods around Downtown may be a worthy investment, but we are not willing to trade our health and the health of our neighbors to do so,” the neighborhood group’s statement read. Addressing congestion, emissions Renderings from TxDOT depicting what the widened, modernized I-10 would look like show many of the buildings that abut I-10 along the south side of Yandell Drive will no longer be there, replaced by the additional road lane. The region’s top transportation planner – Eduardo Calvo, executive director of the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization – says the I-10 modernization is badly needed. The pavement in the Downtown segment is old and worn out, and the pillars that hold up cross streets above I-10 don’t meet updated federal highway standards, he said. TxDOT wants to add a lane in the Downtown segment because its long-term traffic modeling predicts traffic will become much worse in that part of the highway in the coming decades, as El Paso grows and spreads out further. Calvo said without an additional lane, the Downtown part of I-10 could become a traffic bottleneck since the highway features more lanes in the portions west and east of Downtown. And vehicles idling in traffic produce more pollution than swiftly-moving cars, Calvo said. “That part of I-10 really needs to be rebuilt, urgently,” Calvo told El Paso Matters. “If you don’t address congestion, then your emission levels are going to go up, and you’re not going to be improving air quality.” El Paso residents study an overview rendering of the downtown deck plaza proposal during a community meeting, July 30, 2024. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters) The Texas A&M Transportation Institute didn’t list the I-10 segment in Downtown El Paso as among the 100 most congested roads in Texas last year. The most congested portion of road in El Paso last year was U.S. Highway 54, in the segment of the highway south of I-10 leading to the Bridge of the Americas. The second-most traffic-prone stretch of road in the region is on I-10, between the Spaghetti Bowl and Hawkins Boulevard. “This is a poor investment by the state that will not improve traffic in El Paso because Downtown is not the congestion hotspot,” Precinct 2 El Paso County Commissioner David Stout said in a message to constituents Friday. “All that new traffic will produce more pollution, which is bad for the health and quality of life of thousands of my constituents – especially for children and elderly constituents,” Stout said. The TxDOT project downtown has not been formally approved yet, and is “currently under the preliminary design phase and the environmental process,” said Jennifer Wright, a TxDOT spokesperson. “The detail design phase has not started and is anticipated to begin later this year,” she said. TxDOT is currently conducting an in-depth environmental study of the highway modernization, which will be presented to the public late this year, according to the agency. TxDOT said it will present its preferred option at a public hearing later this year, which will indicate which buildings the agency plans to acquire for the I-10 project. Wright said TxDOT expects to begin soliciting bids for the work on I-10 next July. Still, even though the I-10 project in the Downtown segment has not been formally approved, TxDOT set aside $500 million to fund the first phase of the I-10 modernization downtown. The state’s seven-member transportation commission will review TxDOT’s so-called Unified Transportation Program – which includes a list of proposed projects – later this month and decide whether to approve funding for transportation infrastructure across the state, including the I-10 work. So, while the widening and repair of I-10 is not guaranteed to happen, the fact that funding is identified in TxDOT’s plan for 2025 gives a “high level of certainty” that the project will begin next year in some form, Calvo said. That means there’s a time crunch to advance the deck park plans. “Simultaneous construction schedules for the two projects will have less impact to the traveling public,” Wright said. Who will pay for the deck? Supporters of the deck park idea say federal grants and possibly state funds could provide a majority of the money needed to build the plaza. Yellen pointed to Dallas, which in March won an $80 million award from the U.S. Department of Transportation that that city will use to build pedestrian caps over four different highways. Dallas will direct $20 million of that federal grant to fund a second phase of construction at Klyde Warren Park, which was built on top of a major highway and is a model for El Paso’s deck plaza. Tracy Yellen of the El Paso Community Foundation discusses the downtown deck plaza proposal during a community meeting, July 30, 2024. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters) “There are funding opportunities that we need to pursue to draw down as many state and federal funds as we possibly can, so we can then make it affordable for our community,” Yellen said. “What that looks like we don’t know yet. But that’s one of the next steps.” She said the foundation and its partners will apply for a grant to provide some money to help with construction planning. The deadline to apply for the federal “Reconnecting Communities” grant is September 30. And since TxDOT said it expects to begin soliciting construction bids next summer and would construct retaining walls to bear the weight of the park, backers of the deck park need to show the state agency soon whether or not the deck idea is likely to move forward, Yellen said. “TxDOT needs some assurance that this can happen,” she said. On top of having to figure out how to finance construction, Calvo said it’s also unclear who will cover the cost of operating and maintaining the park. “Those questions are still in the process of being answered,” Calvo said. Karina Brasgala of the city of El Paso’s Economic and International Development Department answers questions about the Downtown deck plaza proposal during a community meeting, July 30, 2024. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters) There’s about $607 million available for the next year of the federal Reconnecting Communities grant program, which was established by the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that Congress and President Joe Biden passed in 2021. The federal grants set up by recent spending bills are competitive. Last year, the Reconnecting Communities program received 682 applications from all 50 states seeking $11.6 billion in funding. Of those, 131 projects won awards. “These federal programs are pretty competitive, yeah. But I don’t see why” El Paso couldn’t win a grant, Calvo said. However, “if we don’t get our act together and work together and develop these partnerships, our chances of getting it done are slim,” he said. Within the city government, discussions around how to pay for the deck park may stay on the backburner until January, after a new mayor and up to five new City Council representatives enter office, and perhaps after the city has hired a new city manager. In Dallas, a bond that voters approved in 2017 provided $20 million for the Klyde Warren park, which also got $36.7 million from state and federal transportation agencies and $50 million from private donors. The CityArchRiver project in St. Louis, which made it easier for pedestrians to access the park with the city’s famed arches, cost $380 million and was completed in 2018. It was funded with $69 million in state and federal grants, $90 million from a voter-approved bond and $221 million from private donations. City officials in El Paso, meanwhile, see little appetite among property owners here to shoulder a higher tax bill in order to pay for some portion of the deck park. “It’s a beautiful project,” Dionne Mack, a deputy city manager, told El Paso Matters. “But can I say, ‘Oh, we’ve got this beautiful deck park. I’m sorry, can you just weave around that (pothole)? And I’m sorry that your street is washed out.’” She pointed to the fact that private individuals covered about 45% of the cost to build Klyde Warren Park. Related Transforming Downtown: Counting down to La Nube STEAM Center’s Aug. 10 opening La Nube STEAM discovery center opens Aug. 10 in Downtown El Paso, transforming the city’s cultural landscape with innovative, interactive exhibits for all ages. “Other cities that have done this work, that private fundraising has been essential,” Mack said. “We’re about to open La Nube, and we would not have that beautiful facility had not the community stepped up. And they did a tremendous amount of fundraising to get that done.” La Nube, set to open Aug. 10, cost $72 million to develop – more than $30 million of which is being raised through private donations. [END] --- [1] Url: https://elpasomatters.org/2024/08/04/downtown-el-paso-deck-park-i-10-txdot-pdn-community-foundation/ Published and (C) by El Paso Matters.org Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 International. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/elpasomatters/