After about a decade of planning, construction on the Texas Heritage Parkway is beginning.
A groundbreaking ceremony for the project was held June 10 at the intersection of FM 1093 and the future parkway in Fulshear. About 50-60 people attended. Those involved with the project said construction will begin in the next few weeks.
The design plans for the Texas Heritage Parkway involve building a 6.4-mile, 200-foot-wide thoroughfare with two lanes in either direction and a median, the Fort Bend County Precinct 3 Commissioner’s Office confirmed via email June 2. Construction will last about 14 months.
"This has been a project that we've been working on for a number of years, and there's a whole lot of different moving parts to it,” Precinct 3 Commissioner Andy Meyers said at the event.
This new north-south road will have a total of 10 roundabouts and two traffic lights from I-10 at Pederson Road to McKinnon Road just south of FM 1093 near downtown Fulshear, per the commissioner’s office.
The road is expected to help improve north-south traffic and bring traffic relief to the Grand Parkway and FM 1463, per the commissioner’s office. Additional benefits once it opens will include quicker emergency response times.
New residential, commercial and public development, such as a Texas Heritage Marketplace and a new library for the city of Fulshear, is expected to follow the completion of the parkway.
“What we're looking forward to are all the businesses and the services that are also going to be possible now that we have this route," said Andrew Van Chau, a board member of Fulshear-Katy Chamber of Commerce and of Fulshear Economic Development Corporation-Type A. "This is a really great news in this COVID-19 environment.”
Construction segments
Project construction is split among three sections, and Section 3 has been split into three additional sections as 3A, 3B and 3C, per the commissioner’s office. Construction for the three phases will occur simultaneously and will have limited to no effect on existing traffic.
The construction contract for Section 1, which begins at McKinnon and runs north for about 2 miles, was awarded to Allgood Construction Co. Inc.
R Construction Co. will oversee construction for Section 2, which begins where Section 1 ends and runs north to about 1.8 miles south of Kingsland Boulevard.
Harris Construction Co. Ltd. was awarded the contract for sections 3A and 3B, which begin at about 1.8 miles south of Kingsland Boulevard to Kingsland Boulevard.
Section 3C, from Kingsland Boulevard to the I-10 frontage road, will be bid for construction in a few months, per the commissioner’s office.
The funding
The approximately $55 million project’s funding is split 50-50 with 11 private landowners and public entities, including Fort Bend County, Waller County, the city of Katy and the city of Fulshear, according to the commissioner's office.
The landowners paid 100% of the design costs and provided the land for the parkway and will also contribute $2 million for a trail system that will be 10 feet wide alongside the parkway and have crossings under the roundabouts for uninterrupted pedestrian and bike movement, per the commissioner’s office.
-Jen Para of Community Impact Newspaper