Broadway-Hildebrand drainage project will make for bottlenecks

With the University of the Incarnate Word in the background, Broadway (lower left to upper right) and Hildebrand Avenue intersect. With the University of the Incarnate Word in the background, Broadway (lower left to upper right) and Hildebrand Avenue intersect. Photo: Robin Jerstad, For The Express-News Photo: Robin Jerstad, For The Express-News Image 1 of / 14 Caption Close Broadway-Hildebrand drainage project will make for bottlenecks 1 / 14 Back to Gallery

On Jan. 7, work starts on a long-delayed, controversial drainage and street project at Broadway and Hildebrand, a bustling confluence of people, residences, companies, institutions and a crush of traffic.

Those include the University of the Incarnate Word and AT&T's administration and call center, which sit within a mile of two major attractions — the Witte Museum and Brackenridge Park — and the popular Central Market as well as the 20-story Broadway luxury condominiums and an array of small retailers.

All revolve around the intersection where more than 60,000 vehicles drive every day.

Construction will last 18 months and involve numerous lane closures and traffic detours.

“It's one of our more complicated projects because it's a tight space,” said Mike Frisbie, director of the city's office of Capital Improvements Management Services.

The project is one of 150 projects that were parts of the 2007-2012 bond, most of which are complete or under construction.

The project's main purpose is to take water that usually floods the streets during heavy rainfalls and route it underground so it gets to the San Antonio River more efficiently. Traffic and pedestrian access also will be improved, Frisbie said.

“It's going to be 18 months of construction but then decades of a brand-new, very nice facility when it's done,” Frisbie said.

That depends on who you ask. The project originally was set to begin in May 2011 but was delayed after two organizations, the Headwaters Coalition and the River Road Neighborhood Association, filed a lawsuit and were granted a temporary injunction, stopping work.

They argue the project violates the bond language voters approved, which said drainage would be funneled underground at Carnahan Street, near the Witte Museum. The city later changed the project so the water would be diverted underground to the river at Hildebrand.

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Specifically, the Headwaters Coalition worries the project could damage the river's headwaters upstream, called the Blue Hole. The coalition also fears the project could end its hope of connecting the river north and south of Hildebrand to create a “Spiritual Reach.”

The River Road association says the project won't address flooding problems in its neighborhood and instead will make flooding worse.

“It's going to flood the neighborhood, it's going to add floodwaters to the neighborhood and change the floodplain,” said Barbara Witte-Howell, a longtime River Road resident.

City officials said the project was intended to address street flooding, not remove properties from the 100-year floodplain.

The direction changed, they said, after engineers determined moving water down Hildebrand made more financial and design sense, but the intent remains the same.

“The promise we made and the promise we kept is that we alleviate flooding at Broadway and Hildebrand,” said City Attorney Michael Bernard. “Where you put the stuff doesn't matter. Where you put the pipes doesn't matter.”

The project remains in the legal system. In May, the 4th Court of Appeals lifted the temporary injunction, and the city signed a $15.5 million contract with Texas Sterling Construction Co. in September.

A few days later, the plaintiffs' attorneys filed an application for an appeal with the Texas Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has sent a letter to the city, asking it to respond to the plaintiffs' request for appeal.

“We're dead right on the law,” said Tom Kemmy, attorney for the Headwaters Coalition and the River Road Neighborhood Association.

Bernard said the project is still on schedule and “we're going to stay on schedule,” even if the court decides to hear the case.

To the project opponents, this represents one more bad-faith act by the city.

“I think it's pretty irresponsible to commit that amount of money, $15.5 million, to a project that, depending on the outcome of a lawsuit, may or may not occur,” said Helen Ballew, executive director of the Headwaters Coalition.

While in the long run, the project aims to solve flooding on Broadway, in the short run, it will mean a lot of traffic tie-ups and detours.

“I wish they could do it in two months, instead of 18 months,” said Marise McDermott, Witte Museum president and CEO. “I guess they can't.”

Headache relief

Almost as soon as Mark Graban and his wife moved into their sixth-floor home in the Broadway condo tower this year, they noticed how badly Hildebrand needed repair.

“I definitely see a need for a project,” Graban said, but he still has no idea how bad construction could really get, living in the epicenter of the work.

“It's a bit on the scary side, considering we're a small business,” said Antoinette Lutz, a partner in Chill Out, a frozen yogurt store in a small strip center on Broadway, just north of the project construction area. She doubts the city will finish on time.

“They don't realize how much it actually hurts small business” when construction goes on too long, Lutz said.

To help speed the project along, crews will work 11 hours a day, six days a week. Occasionally, work will require contractors to close the entire intersection, but the city plans to do that at night and on weekends.

The city also will send out weekly emails to project “stakeholders” and “over communicate” about closures, Frisbie said.

More specifically, the project will include:

• Construction of larger drainage outfall into the San Antonio River, just south of Hildebrand, consisting of two box culverts, each 9 feet wide and 6 feet tall. The existing drainage pipe into the river at this spot is about 3 feet in diameter. This has been one of the more controversial pieces of the project.

• New underground drainage systems on Broadway, from Burr to Allensworth, and on Hildebrand from just west of Broadway to the river.

• An additional traffic signal at Allensworth, making it easier for AT&T employees to cross Broadway.

• Adding a left-turn-only lane on Hildebrand into UIW to possibly alleviate long traffic backups there and moving the existing traffic light at this site about 100 feet east. Both AT&T and UIW donated right of way for the project.

• Redoing driveways and sidewalks on both sides of Broadway, from Burr to Allensworth. Redoing sidewalks on the north side of Hildebrand from Broadway to the traffic light into UIW and AT&T. Adding new sidewalks on the south side of Hildebrand from Broadway to the river.

• On northbound Broadway, the city will add a left-turn lane onto Hildebrand, and on eastbound Hildebrand add a left-turn lane onto Broadway.

• The city will bury overhead utility lines in and around the Broadway and Hildebrand intersection.

• The project will also include infiltration inlets that will help pick up trash and debris before it flows into the river.

• San Antonio Water System and CPS Energy will replace some of their water and sewer lines and natural gas infrastructure.

Construction will be broken down into 20 phases, which will last anywhere from one week to nearly four months.

UIW has encouraged its 6,100 students who take classes at the main campus to use an egress ramp into the university off of U.S. 281 at Hildebrand during construction.

“In the long run, it's going to make a real improvement,” said Lou Fox, special assistant to UIW President Lou Agnese.

The university has a construction updates link on its website, and students are alerted through social media and a daily campus newsletter, said Margaret Garcia, associate director of public relations for UIW.

Fox said the city has pledged to work on weekends and during “low-impact times,” such as holiday breaks.

However, while students are off for Spring Break in March, for example — arguably a good time to do work related to UIW — that's one of the busiest times for the Witte Museum and the nearby San Antonio Zoo, McDermott said.

Witte draws 45,000 visitors during a Spring Break week, McDermott said. At Brackenridge Park, tens of thousands of people celebrate Easter weekend, said Leilah Powell, executive director for the park's conservancy.

Outfall fallout

Besides the project's inconvenience, there's concern with the project itself, particularly over the drainage outfall in the river. It would sully the natural river, opponents said, and damage the banks and increase the probability of flooding.

The San Antonio River Oversight Committee initially echoed the Headwaters Coalition's and River Road's worry that the outfall was too big and unattractive, a long cement wall in stark contrast to the natural river.

“What they were proposing was a very nice design,” said Irby Hightower, SAROC co-chair. “It was inappropriate for the area it was located. It's right at the headwaters, and you've got the part of the river that's very small, the banks are very low, the river's pretty close to where it was historically.”

Since then, SAROC worked with the city to redesign the outfall. Now the culverts are slightly lower, so there will always be some water in them — a change that could help deter people from walking inside, said Claudia Valles-Tovar, project engineer.

Crews will install “energy dissipaters” — concrete blocks — that are like “a speed bump for the water,” breaking up its energy and making it less likely to erode the opposite riverbank, said Razi S. Hosseini, assistant director of Capital Improvements Management Services.

The design has also been adjusted so there's a natural riverbank on either side of the culverts, allowing vegetation to grow, Hightower said.

Ballew said the outfall is still too “massive” for where it is.

But Hosseini said the current drainage system isn't big enough to handle the water during heavy rains. A larger pipe, he said, will actually slow down the velocity of the water as it enters the river.

“Science proves it,” Frisbie said, referring to various studies that show there will be no negative impact upstream or downstream from the outfall.

The conservancy would have preferred that the water be diverted to an engineered channel, called the Catalpa-Pershing, farther south on Broadway, Powell said. But the city said that would add millions of dollars to the project, she said, and “we understand that was not feasible.”

The changes to the outfall are good, Powell said. Now, like many stakeholders bracing for the work, she just wants the project to begin.

“If it's going to be 18 months work, I think everybody is anxious to get it started and over with,” she said.

That won't come until summer 2014.

vdavila@express-news.net