“Ideally, our service level for the city of Sugar Land is a 90-day service level,” Assistant Director of Public Works Herc Meier said. “We are currently down to a 14- [to] 20-month service level.”
According to Meyer, that number represents the amount of time it takes to address service requests, and it is down from a previous 18- to 24-month turnaround time, Meier explained, but it is still much lower than city officials would like.
To address a high level of service requests and a low ability to address service levels, $2.8 million has been allocated for sidewalk improvements around the city. Of that number, $1.8 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding was approved at the March 21 City Council meeting, while an additional one-time $400,000 contract and a recurring $625,000 five-year annual contract were approved prior to the March 21 meeting.
The city is working with two contractors—Greenscape Six and Cedros Paving Service—to target some 752 sidewalk service requests across the city, though most are located in the New Territory and Greatwood subdivisions, Meyer said. Both areas were annexed into Sugar Land in 2017.
Meier said Sugar Land manages 846 miles of sidewalks and trails with a total replacement cost of approximately $126 million. Annually, the city receives approximately 800 service requests, which the city has fallen behind on addressing in recent years due to a slowdown in productivity as well as resources, Meier said.
In addition, the annexation of Greatwood and New Territory resulted in Sugar Land taking on a significant number of service requests, Meier said.
The lump $1.8 million sum aims to get the city back on track to addressing service requests within a 90-day window, Meier said.
Cedros Paving Service will address the backlog of service requests received from Oct. 1, 2021, to March 21, 2023.
The project was originally bid out solely to Greenscape Six, but the firm was unable to secure bonding documents, resulting in the city having to rebid, city documents said.
