More than $400 million of capital improvement projects, or CIPs, proposed over the next five years were presented to Pflugerville city officials at a work session Tuesday prior to Thursday night’s City Council meeting.
Representatives from Pflugerville’s engineering and parks and recreation departments previewed drafted plans for roadway improvements, water and wastewater improvements and park projects at the annual joint work session between the council and the planning and zoning commission.
"If there’s going to be any discussion or consideration for a future bond election, for parks and recreation, we want to be able to identify some potential projects," Pflugerville Parks and Recreation Director James Hemenes said Thursday night.
City officials will now discuss adoption of portions of the drafted plans—including the issuance of a general obligation bond election in November—in the coming months.
The drafted figures listed in the CIP plans represent transportation, utility, parks and facilities projects.
According to the documents presented by Pflugerville City Engineer Amy Giannini, five city transportation projects that have yet to be completed remain funded by $34.9 million worth of funds left over from the 2014 general obligation bond funds. Four of those projects are under construction and a fifth—the Pfennig Lane widening project—is set to break ground later this summer.
The CIP plan listed more than 20 transportation projects laid out over the next five fiscal years, including 20 combined roadway projects, traffic signal improvements and planning projects. The total projected costs for these projects is $66.54 million. Funding sources and timelines for the design and construction of the projects were not defined for the majority of the items listed.
City officials additionally saw facilities projections included as part of the CIP presentation. Pflugerville is currently rounding out a City Hall needs assessment that currently predicts a shortage of 20,000 square feet of municipal space for city staff based on current needs, according to the CIP documents. The Pflugerville Police Department published a similar report for its Justice Center in 2017 that found a projected need of 63,000 square feet.
As a result, the CIP plan includes $71.6 million of funds for expanding the Pflugerville City Hall and Justice Center, accounting for land acquisition, renovations and expansion. No funding sources for those projects are outlined in the CIP plan.
The presented CIP plans outline $123.1 million more in proposed water and wastewater facility and infrastructure improvements, including $57.65 million in
expansions for existing wastewater plants and $13.2 million for the
construction of a new treatment facility.
Hemenes presented a handful of prioritized parks and recreation projects for fiscal year 2019 CIP funding, as well as potential projects for the city if a general obligation bond election is put on the November 2018 ballot and other parks projects that will need funding up to FY 2023.
The prioritized projects for FY 2019 total $1.25 million and include the final connecting trail for the citywide Gilleland Creek Trail. Playground replacements, practice field renovations and improvements, park designs and a splash pad at Stone Hill Park represent the other priority projects in the CIP documents.
Three projects were also included in the CIP documents with the possibility of a general obligation bond election in November. The Pflugerville Parks and Recreation Department included the completion of the second phase of Lake Pflugerville, totaling $12.4 million, in the project list. In all, the three proposed projects total to an estimated funding cost of $35.4 million.
The rest of the Parks and Recreation Department's five-year CIP funding documents outlined numerous trails and parks improvements. Construction to complete
future phases of 1849 Park are projected to be the costliest undertaking for the city at $43 million.
The cost between the 19 projects listed on the parks and recreation department's CIP list totaled more than $100 million, including the $35.4 million outlined for potential general obligation bond funds.
No action on any funding or bond election items was taken Tuesday night. Pflugerville City Council briefly discussed the CIP projects during its regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday. Council Member Rudy Metayer requested that a full discussion surrounding project priorities be placed on the agenda for the council's two-day strategic planning meetings in June.
Read the full list of proposed five-year CIP projects listed below:
