'Lessons learned': TxDOT briefs state lawmakers on stalled Harbor Bridge project

Texas Department of Transportation officials briefed state lawmakers on the status of the troubled Harbor Bridge project during a heated public hearing in Corpus Christi on Thursday, more than two months since the state agency indefinitely halted work on the bridge’s main span.

The Texas House Transportation Committee hearing, held at the Congressman Solomon P. Ortiz International Center, just a short distance from the incomplete bridge, marked the first time TxDOT has publicly answered questions from state officials about the bridge project. The project, which broke ground in 2016 and was initially expected to be completed in 2020, is at least four years behind schedule and expected to exceed its nearly $1 billion budget.

For more than an hour, the bipartisan committee of lawmakers and representatives of the Nueces County delegation peppered TxDOT officials with an array of questions about the project. The committee heard voluntary testimony from local elected officials and the chairman of the Port of Corpus Christi Authority.

The new Harbor Bridge will be the tallest structure in South Texas when it is completed. It will replace the existing 1950s-era Harbor Bridge, a signature of Corpus Christi's skyline that connects the city via U.S. 181 to North Beach, the home of popular tourist attractions USS Lexington and Texas State Aquarium.

The bridge developer, Flatiron/Dragados, said earlier this year that the new bridge would be completed in late 2024. However, TxDOT directed the developer to pause construction on the bridge's main span in July, citing concerns with the proposed design. TxDOT and its independent consultant, International Bridge Technologies, said the planned design of the bridge would risk collapse under certain conditions.

Questions from the committee centered on when TxDOT first became aware of the design concerns, whether officials could have addressed those issues sooner and the execution of the design-build process TxDOT is using to deliver the project.

Democratic state Rep. Terry Canales of Edinburg, the chairman of the committee, said the sequence of issues and delays has “challenged the integrity” of TxDOT’s bridge development process and the trust of local residents.

While fielding questions from Canales, TxDOT Executive Director Marc Williams said the delays were unacceptable and that TxDOT has had “lessons learned” from the project. TxDOT plans, he said, to exercise more oversight on projects of a similar scale to the Harbor Bridge in the future.

“(TxDOT) very much shares in the frustration that residents and businesses and community leaders of the Corpus Christi region have felt over the delays associated with the work on this project,” Williams said in his opening remarks. “In this particular instance, I believe there were challenges with how those risks were processed and managed, and we made changes in our program to better account for that.”

TxDOT does not currently have a completion timeline or an estimate of when construction on the main span would resume, as those elements depend on solidifying plans by Flatiron/Dragados to address TxDOT’s design concerns, Williams said.

That a timeline has not yet been presented was a sticking point for some lawmakers, including state Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, who said, “(E)verything I've heard today isn't really moving the ball.”

However, signaling that TxDOT may be sticking with the current developer, Williams said TxDOT and Flatiron/Dragados had signed a written agreement that detailed how the project would move forward following the pause.

In August, TxDOT gave Flatiron/Dragados a 15-day timeline, initiated by a legal notice called a notice of default, to address its design concerns or be removed from the project. TxDOT and the developer later opted to continue those negotiations, which Valente Olivarez Jr., TxDOT's Corpus Christi District engineer, said at the time were “promising.”

However, Williams said Thursday that the new agreement retains the legal remedies put in place when TxDOT issued the notice of default to Flatiron/Dragados, meaning TxDOT could still remove the developer without issuing an additional notice until it decides to rescind the notice of default. TxDOT has taken preemptive steps to continue construction should it remove the developer, Williams said.

TxDOT has promised local officials that the local governmental entities will not front any additional costs associated with delays. To date, TxDOT has paid Flatiron/Dragados $786 million for its work on the project, which was initially estimated to cost $930 million.

Flatiron/Dragados has assured TxDOT it would resolve the design concerns at the company's expense, a TxDOT spokesperson, Rickey Dailey, told the Caller-Times this week.

More on the Harbor Bridge

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More:TxDOT spoke publicly on its Harbor Bridge design concerns. Here are seven key takeaways.

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: TxDOT briefs state lawmakers on stalled Harbor Bridge project