CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The city of Corpus Christi has been working to try and finish the Staples Street project, which started in January 2021, and was supposed to be finished in May 2023.
But this multimillion-dollar project is behind schedule.
The work on Bond 2018 will see the stretch from Kostoryz Road to Baldwin Boulevard have its old asphalt surface ripped out and replaced with concrete.
The bond was approved for $6.9 million. The current total cost of everything right now: $14 million.
"The GO bond funds the surface improvements, and then revenue bonds funds all of the subsurface utility work," said city engineer Jeff Edmonds.
During the summer, 3NEWS checked in with city Of Corpus Christi on the status of the Staples Street project. We were told that it would be open and ready by October, but now, that's been pushed back till early December.
"There's been unanticipated utility conflict issues,” he said. “We had an issue with a lot of petroleum and soil contamination that we had to deal with."
While city work crews run into problems from time to time, city councilman Jim Klein still wants to see these bond projects completed sooner than later.
"These projects that are taking four or five years -- I'd like to see them done in half that time or less than that."
One way the city has tried to speed up the process is to separate design projects and construction projects between two bonds.
Edmonds said the city did the design funding on Yorktown Boulevard, between Rodd Field Road and the Oso Bridge, in Bond 2020, then voters agreed to fund the construction costs through Bond 2022.
Doing it that way should have led to getting the project started quickly, but, because of permitting issues, construction didn't begin earlier this year.
Instead, it should begin next spring.