TRV bridge construction begins anew
June 19,2017
Reposted from Fort Worth Business Press
By Linda Kessler
Following construction and design resolutions, construction on the Trinity River Vision project’s three bridges is beginning once more.
At a June 14 meeting, the TRV TIF Board of Directors received updates from Trinity River Vision Authority Executive Director J.D. Granger on what’s been and what will be done with the Trinity River Vision project.
Originally roughly estimated for completion at the end of 2018, the bridges – which are being constructed by Texas Sterling Construction – are now expected to be finished in 2019, pending a final schedule set by TxDOT this August at the TRVA monthly board meeting. An update on the financing and cost of the bridge will be given at the August meeting.
Henderson Street, White Settlement and North Main Street bridges will connect downtown Fort Worth and Panther Island as part of the Trinity River Vision project.
After being on hold for about a year, “the bridge cages here are well underway. We had a tough issue going on with the contractor who was making a lot of design claims and problems with it. Our team, the city of Fort Worth and TxDOT were saying ‘no it’s the way you’re building it,’” Granger said.
“We went ahead and did a [6 ft. tall, 8 ft. wide and 20 ft. long] mockup of it, we cut that section open and sure enough it showed the design was very good. So, with that the bridge contract is now going full speed once again,” he said.
They expect to begin pouring concrete piers for the North Main bridge in mid-July, and plan to continue pouring one new pier every two weeks until all bridges are complete.
Granger also discussed the development side of the project. The first development they’ve closed on is the Panther Island five-story multi-family project with Encore Development and GFF Architects.
The apartment complex also includes a portion of the canal cut project, featuring a “Riverwalk” similar to the one in San Antonio.
“We are going through design standards with the developer right now, but it very much has the look and feel of materials of Fort Worth,” Granger said. “They have been very responsive and we do expect to start that canal in January and the developer will start the parking garage at the same time.”
Though there have been no other development announcements for the TRV Project, Granger said they are still working on several options for developments in the area.
“We have a lot of multi-family interest, we have office tower interest and we have a ton of hotel interest,” he said. “The hotel demand is extremely high – it’s one of the main interests walking in the front door right now.”
Granger updated the board on the order of what’s to come with this development. First construction on the bridges will take place, then the bypass channel and storm water management components will be completed, isolation gates and the dam and channel lock will be added, along with an interior water feature, the 33-acre town lake and then Panther Island will be complete. All components of Panther Island are expected to be complete by 2025, he said.
In the past year, they have completed six big components of the project. In December, after 10 years of work, they received full $526 million Congressional authorization of components proposed project, they are down to acquiring the last three of about 80 parcels needed for the bypass channel and bridge controversies are long gone.
Additionally, they have completed two large environmental remediation projects in that of McKinley Iron Works and TX Refinery, which included the removal of hazardous material and general clean-up to residential standards. Finally, many water and sewer relocations have been done with some additional water & sanitary sewers to be relocated in the next year.
Coming in 2018 for the project will be the continued bridge construction, demolition of the RadioShack storage building, Star-R-Foam’s environmental remediation and the relocation of storm sewers and franchise utilities.