Next month, reports Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon, construction’s supposed to start on 3 more segments of the Grand Parkway: That’s why F1, F2, and G on the map here are colored in that cautionary yellow. And where G ends? Not coincidentally, adds Dixon, at that future intersection with U.S. 59, planned to be completed by 2015, the 1400-acre master-planned Valley Ranch is getting ready to sprawl out.
Note: A TxDOT spokesperson has confirmed that the total cost of the project is $1.3 billion. Story updated below.
This map shows where commuters would get in and out of the toll lanes that TxDOT says it will build in the grassy median of Texas 288 — part of a project it’s proposing to help deal with Med Center congestion and development southwest of town by widening 26 miles of the highway between U.S. 59 and County Road 60. Several new overpasses at intersections and upgraded connections to the Loop and Beltway 8 are also included in the project, which TxDOT says will cost about $1.38 million $1.3 billion. The full extent of the project will be rolled out tonight at a public hearing in Houston and again on Thursday in Pearland.
Map: TxDOT
Last month, Cite magazine editor Raj Mankad hiked 8 miles through the Katy Prairie to see the prehistoric human remains found during the construction of Grand Parkway’s Segment E for himself. He brought back a few photos and an essayist’s-eye-view of the archaeological saga:
It appeared as if TxDOT had aimed the 15-mile-long highway segment directly at the burial ground. The highway was suspended, figuratively and physically, like an unintentional monument honoring the burial grounds, like Texas was trying to tell anyone in an airplane or spaceship to LOOK HERE. . . . What I saw were several pieces of plywood, propped up on five-gallon paint buckets, covering what I presume to be the human remains and the tools, buffalo teeth, and other objects found with them. The plywood was weighted down with rocks. . . . To my amateur eyes, the excavation looked makeshift and tenuous, not systematic or professional.
Photos: Brett Sillers
“Yes we do know what people were doing 10,000 years ago. Basically it’s the same thing we are doing today. Making and raising children, trying to feed our family, and working to have safety, shelter, and clothing.” [Bill, commenting on Grand Parkway Will Pile on the Dead]
An agreement between TxDOT, the Harris County Historical Commission, and 5 Native American tribes over what to do with the prehistoric human remains unearthed in the prairie highway’s path will allow construction of the Grand Parkway Segment E to continue — with only a bump in the road: “Under the agreement, TxDOT will fill the excavated areas and cover them with rip rap, creating a permanent burial site near where the road would cross Cypress Creek, about three miles south of U.S. 290.” The reburial might confuse future anthropologists, though: “[UH professor of anthropology Kenneth] Brown expressed frustration over TxDOT’s handling of the site, saying crews saved some artifacts but ruined the area for richer study. The agency’s crews scraped and sifted mechanically instead of digging by hand. ‘When you scrape, you will find things, but you won’t be able to see how they were associated,’ Brown said. ‘That is a shame because we do not know what people were doing 10,000 to 14,000 years ago, and we won’t know now.’” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of gravesite: abc13
“Only problem is that with a huge name like Grand Parkway, what will we call the next, even bigger loop?” [Frank, commenting on Three More Links in the Grand Parkway Are Now Ready To Roll]
Yesterday the Texas Transportation Commission rubber-stamped TxDOT’s selection of a developer for 3 additional segments of the Grand Parkway — if you count FM1960 and Hwy. 6, Houston’s fourth ring road. Segments F1, F2, and G of State Hwy. 99 will run from Hwy. 290 east to the newly minted I-69 (also known as U.S. 59). Along the way, the new stretch will rub elbows — conveniently — with the new ExxonMobil campus in the former pine forest west of the I-45 intersection and the start of the Hardy Toll Rd. Zachry-Odebrecht Parkway Builders will be in charge of the $1.04 billion project. Construction is expected to start next year, with the toll road opening in 2015. [TxDOT] Map: Tollroads News
District judge Reece Rondon has given TxDOT the go-ahead to remove 2 sets of prehistoric human remains contractors found over the summer in the path of Grand Parkway’s Segment E — as well as any additional gravesites contractors encounter nearby. The bones and bone fragments — some estimated to be as much as 9,000 years old — were discovered on the northern bank of Cypress Creek, less than 3 miles south of where the Grand Parkway will intersect US 290. According to documents submitted to the court, investigators had been aware since 1996 of an extensive archeological site in that location. The Harris County Historical Commission had requested that TxDOT delay the project to allow more study of the artifacts; it is appealing the ruling. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of gravesite: abc13
Where else? After “several months of thoughtful searching,” the chairman and CEO of ConocoPhillips spinoff Phillips 66 has announced the location for the multi-building headquarters campus it plans to build: on the Beltway 8 feeder road in Westchase, just north of Westheimer. Right next door to Homewood Suites and the Fairfield Inn. The campus will include a training and development center, conference space, a credit union office, a wellness center, plus a cafeteria, coffee shop, and — yes — a convenience store. The email announcement doesn’t mention whether the Phillips 66 food mart will be part of a Phillips 66 gas station facing Beltway 8, but CEO Greg Garland reports the company is “still in the conceptual design process” with its architect. A grander entrance to the 14.2-acre property will likely be pulled off of City West Blvd. Construction is expected to take 2 to 3 years once the design is completed.
Image: Phillips 66
Texas’s department of transportation is requesting permission to remove 4 bone fragments found buried in the Katy Prairie — in the path of what will eventually be the largest-circumference ring road ever constructed around a U.S. city. The bones, believed to represent the remains of several people, are at least 2,000 years old, which would make them older than any human body parts previously discovered in the Harris County area. They were unearthed by construction workers. As a result, construction of a portion of Segment E of the Grand Parkway, which will connect I-10 to U.S. Hwy. 290 through acres of uninhabited grasslands, has been halted. TxDOT’s application asks for “expedited removal” of the remains so that work can continue. [abc13; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Deeya Maple
“I hate to be the one to break the news, but the next outer loop beyond Grand Parkway is already being planned. If you look at the land plan for Cross Creek Ranch, there’s a big right of way built into the western portion of the development. It is right close to the proposed terminus of the Westpark Toll Road and roughly aligns with FM 2855 to the north and Spur 10 to the south. Some of the economic development corporations and chambers of commerce out there have even begun tracing its route on their planning maps.” [TheNiche, commenting on The Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Sprawl: The Official 2011 Ballot]
A reader writes in to make sure we were aware that the world’s best book on the popular topic of Houston-area freeways — which just happens to be entitled Houston Freeways — is available as a free PDF ebook download on the author’s website (yes, HoustonFreeways.com). Sharpstown native Erik Slotboom’s freeway-photo-filled 416-page opus has been out of print since 2005, though dedicated freeway fans can still scrounge up an only mildly battered physical copy for upwards of $100 on Amazon and other sites. Online only: Slotboom’s 5-year photo update of all the Houston Freeway happenings that took place between 2003 and 2008.
As recently as the beginning of this year, 2 northwestern segments of the proposed fourth ring road around Houston were considered by many to be stalled projects — remnants, even, of an outdated dream to project sprawling, suburban-style development ever outward from the city. But by September, construction on the 15.2-mile Katy Prairie paving program known as Segment E of the Grand Parkway had magically begun; further north, Grand Parkway’s Segment F — the portion that would connect ExxonMobil’s proposed campus in Spring to western suburbs — now appears inevitable. How’d that happen? Reporter Angie Schmitt looks at the role of developer and TxDOT commissioner Ned Holmes in the startling turnaround, including the former banking executive’s remarkable ability to dig up a previously unnoticed $350 million deep in the books of the otherwise cash-starved state agency he oversees — in order to make the Grand Parkway happen. [StreetsBlog; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Rte. 99 ramp construction: Covering Katy
The Fort Bend County Toll Road Association plans to start construction of a $20 million, 2.3-mile southern extension of the Fort Bend Parkway from Hwy. 6 to the Sienna Parkway later this year. (The Hwy. 6 underpass will cost an additional $20 million). Plans to to build a 3-mile-long northern extension the Fort Bend Parkway — from Rte. 90A through Westbury, so it connects to the southwest corner of the 610 Loop — have been on the books for more than a decade, but Harris County officials aren’t interested in building it. [Houston Chronicle] Map: HCTRA
Comment of the Day: The Pay Way
“ALL new highways should be toll roads. Every last one of them. If you use it, you pay for it. If you don’t use it, no harm to you. You don’t HAVE to drive it. YOU decide by your actions if you wish to pay more. Nothing makes more sense economic equality-wise than that.” [Thomas, commenting on TxDOT Presents Toll Lanes Down the Middle of 288]