Nueces County awarded millions to improve Bob Hall Pier, coastal parks
Nueces County was awarded millions in two grants to restore I.B. Magee Beach and Padre Balli parks and to build a new parking lot for Bob Hall Pier after the area suffered damage from Hurricane Hanna in 2020.
The county commissioners accepted the two grants, one for $1.75 million and another for $7.5 million, during their regular meeting Wednesday.
Bob Hall Pier
The hurricane left damage to the county’s Padre Balli Park, rendering unusable the parking lot that was adjacent to the beach and provided access to Bob Hall Pier. Instead of rebuilding the parking lot at the same site, Nueces County sought to relocate it from the beach to behind the dunes.
Through the Texas General Land Office, the county was awarded $1.75 million of funding from the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act to construct a new parking lot and a new access road to the parking lot from Beach Access Road 6.
The county plans to incorporate green infrastructure techniques into the parking lot designs to reduce parking lot stormwater runoff, according to a work plan on the county’s website.
The project is part of a larger effort to reconstruct Bob Hall Pier.
The county plans to connect the new parking lot to the renovated pier with an elevated pedestrian walkway in the future.
The project will restore Americans with Disability Act-compliant parking access for visitors of the fishing pier and allow the county to comply with beach dune rules that were adopted after the original parking lot was built. Additionally, relocating the parking lot behind the dunes will help reduce impacts to the dune system, according to the work plan.
Per conditions of the grant, the project to build a parking lot and an access road is expected to be completed by March 2026, or sooner.
Coastal parks
The county was awarded $7.5 million to construct additional campsites, dune walkovers, restroom and shower facilities and a 19-mile hike/bike trail, as well as stormwater retention ponds.
The improvements are meant to attract and accommodate tourists, “provide for the return of freshwater wetland habitat” and conserve the habitat from human impacts, according to the county’s grant contract with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
The funds were awarded by the state commission from the federal RESTORE Act, which dedicated penalties paid to the United States in connection with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill for ecological and economic recovery efforts in the Gulf region.
The county secured a federal grant consulting firm, GrantWorks, for grant administration services.
Nueces County Coastal Parks expects the engineering selection and design process to wrap up near the end of 2023 with potential procurement and construction services beginning early 2024.
Nueces County has so far spent $6.8 million to complete the first phase of the project, which included planning and regulatory compliance, and to recover from damage caused by Hurricane Harvey to be “project ready,” according to the grant contract.
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This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Nueces County awarded millions to improve Bob Hall Pier, coastal parks
