Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Flour Bluff businesses voice causeway woes

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Wednesday, July 28, 1999

Flour Bluff businesses voice causeway woes
Owners say extending the raised area on Padre Island Drive would destroy their livelihoods
By Jennifer Stump
Caller-Times

Vera Buchanan, 88, doesn't know what she would do without the income from her small motel in Flour Bluff.
   But she does know that if South Padre Island Drive is elevated in front of her business, she'll probably go bankrupt.
   Her son, J.D. Buchanan, said it would take six to nine months for the 30-room Plaza Motel to close down if the state raises JFK Causeway further into Flour Bluff instead of keeping with the original plan to start the nine-foot elevation at Laguna Shores.
   Vera Buchanan has run the motel since 1956, but said the extended causeway elevation would mean passing traffic wouldn't be able to see her business.
   "I don't have any money at all," she said. "I don't know what I'll do."
   Buchanan and other Flour Bluff business owners asked the Corpus Christi City Council on Tuesday to prevent the state from raising the causeway in front of the numerous family-owned businesses in the area. The proposal to start the elevation at O'Connell Street is different from the one offered during the county's failed June 12 bond election, which would have started the bridge at the edge of Flour Bluff.
   The Texas Department of Transportation will hold a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Flour Bluff Intermediate School cafeteria. People will be able to make comments before the environmental and engineering design studies are finished.
   The state's plan would raise the roadway to at least 9 feet above mean sea level to provide an escape route during storm tides and surges.
   Two of the three Texas Transportation Commission members have promised that if local officials can come up with $12 million, $33 million in state and federal money will be available to elevate the causeway.
   The Corpus Christi Metropolitan Planning Organization, which funnels all state and federal road money, has $4 million set aside for the project. The City Council has agreed to ask a state low-interest lending program for another $4 million.
   County officials also have said they will come up with $4 million for the project, although Judge Richard Borchard said they might not sell the certificates of obligation until sometime this fall.
   The three-member transportation commission will meet in August and distribute its strategic priority funds, a discretionary pot of money that is set aside for projects such as the JFK Causeway, which are needed but do not meet the state's standard qualifications such as large traffic counts.



Staff writer Jennifer Stump can be reached at 886-3778 or by e-mail at stumpj@caller.com

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