San Marcos' downtown reconstruction, which has included work on Hutchison Street, LBJ Drive, CM Allen Parkway and San Marcos Plaza Park, is expected to be complete by late summer, but recent freezes and rain have caused delays.
The project was originally budgeted to cost $10.21 million, and so far there have been eight change orders, which has cost an additional $240,016. Those changes account for 2.3 percent of the total project cost, well within the 12 percent contingency funding allotted for the project.
So far all of Texas State University's utilities have been relocated underground. On the north side of university, all of the utility poles have been removed. Relocation of the rest of the city's utility lines is expected to be completed by the end of the year, City Engineer Jennifer Shell said.
Most of the work on Hutchison Street has been completed, but a few sections of sidewalk remain fenced off due to missing grates.
The west side of LBJ is being repaved and the sidewalks are being reconstructed. When completed, the sidewalks will be 6 feet wider.
Councilman John Thomaides questioned why the work has taken as long as it has.
"It seems like we can dig out a section of street quicker than five months—one lane," Thomaides said. "It's a terrible disruption for the businesses there. We all know that and we're all hearing it."
Shell said the recent freezes and rain have disrupted work on the project.
Councilman Ryan Thomason, who co-owns a custom home building company, said his company has counted 37 lost workdays on one of their job sites since mid-December.
"Just because it's not raining one day doesn't mean it's not still a problem from two days prior," Thomason said. "Construction has had a terrible experience with weather lately I think you could pretty easily say a month [has been lost due to weather]."
Shell said some recently rebuilt sections of sidewalk on Hutchison Street will have to be reconstructed because large vehicle such as fire trucks have had navigating the tight lanes on the road.
Shell said sections of the sidewalk would be moved back 5 feet in order to allow for safer travel. The adjustment would also add two parking spaces to the road. Shell estimated the change would take about three weeks and cost about $80,000. The adjustment will be made using left over project funds.
The city is also moving forward with plans to convert LBJ Drive and Guadalupe Street to two-way traffic.
City staff on March 19 presented council with a two-way option on LBJ Drive between Hopkins Street and University Drive that included one lane in each direction as well as a continuous left turn lane. The proposal would reduce the number of parking spots in that section from 61 to 38.
The turn lane was included in order to mitigate traffic backing up behind cars waiting for oncoming traffic to pass before turning left.
"I'm not sure I want to be presented with 20 less parking spaces as the only option, because that doesn't seem to me to be the only option," Thomaides said. "We've created a poison pill: 'You can't do this two-way because we're removing 20 parking spaces from two blocks' We can't just remove 20 parking spots."
City Council directed staff to move forward with the two-way conversion that does not include the continuous left turn lane.
Councilwoman Lisa Prewitt also directed staff to create a plan for how to address delivery trucks that will be stopping on the street and potentially blocking traffic.
