It would cost at least $207 million to build the long-proposed elevated plaza that would sit over a covered portion of Interstate 10 in downtown El Paso and span several blocks from Santa Fe Street east to Kansas Street, according to the Paso del Norte Community Foundation.
On Tuesday, the foundation, the main backer of the elevated park, presented the first cost estimate for the open-air space. It would likely be built at the same time as a separate $1 billion project in which the state transportation agency will repair I-10 downtown and widen the freeway with an additional lane.
“It’s better than I expected,” said Tracy Yellen, executive director of the Paso del Norte Community Foundation, of the estimated cost. “Looking at other projects in other communities of this size and scope, it’s in line with what they’ve cost elsewhere, in some cases less.”
The foundation, which acts as a vehicle for donors to contribute to local nonprofits and causes, created the Downtown Elevated Plaza Foundation to promote the idea and “work with public and private partners” to make it happen, according to its website. The Elevated Plaza Foundation helped secure a $900,000 federal grant with matching funds that paid for a feasibility study that produced the cost estimate.
On the top floor of the Blue Flame building downtown on Tuesday night, the foundation and its consulting firm Stantec presented conceptual renderings showing the elevated plaza spanning five city blocks in length. It had numerous features such as a dog park, gardens, a police substation, a performance stage and a “sports field,” among others.
Several plots of land in the park were left blank, designated only as “future development,” which lowered the cost estimate.
The Paso del Norte Community Foundation proposed dividing the construction into two phases. The first phase would involve building the plaza from Santa Fe to Mesa streets at a cost of $105.3 million. The second phase, from Mesa to Kansas streets, would cost approximately $101.5 million.
It’s not without controversy. The project to repair I-10 and add a lane in the downtown segment could increase the number of cars on the road and increase air pollution and noise in the area, opponents of the I-10 project argue.
Moreover, virtually all of the city’s long-term urban plans call for making the city denser and more walkable, rather than more car-friendly by adding lanes to the freeway that will encourage more people to drive than if the lane were not added. And opponents see the elevated plaza as a way to make the freeway expansion project more palatable to the public.
“The Sunset Heights Neighborhood Improvement Association opposes the unnecessary widening of I-10, which will take years to complete and will bring additional pollution, noise, heat and the incessant din of traffic that can be deeply felt in the neighborhood,” the group said in a statement.
“An elevated amenity that encourages new residents to live in the neighborhoods around downtown may be a worthy investment, but we are not willing to sacrifice our health and the health of our neighbors to do so,” the neighborhood group’s statement said.
Tackling congestion and emissions
Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) renderings showing what a widened and modernized I-10 would look like show that many of the buildings that abut I-10 along the south side of Yandell Drive will no longer be there, replaced by the additional lane.
The region’s top transportation planner, Eduardo Calvo, executive director of the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization, says modernizing I-10 is badly needed. The pavement on the downtown segment is old and worn, and the piers supporting the cross streets over I-10 don’t meet updated federal highway standards, he said.
TxDOT wants to add a lane on the downtown segment because its long-term traffic modeling predicts traffic will get much worse on that portion of the freeway in the coming decades as El Paso grows and expands.
Calvo said that without an additional lane, the downtown portion of I-10 could become a traffic bottleneck because the freeway has more lanes on the portions west and east of downtown. And vehicles idling in traffic produce more pollution than cars moving quickly, Calvo said.
“That part of I-10 really needs to be rebuilt, urgently,” Calvo told El Paso Matters. “If you don’t address congestion, emissions levels are going to go up and you’re not going to improve air quality.”
The Texas A&M Transportation Institute did not include the segment of I-10 in downtown El Paso among the 100 most congested highways in Texas last year. The most congested stretch of highway in El Paso last year was U.S. Highway 54, on the segment of the highway south of I-10 that leads to the Bridge of the Americas. The second most traffic-prone stretch of highway in the region is on I-10, between the Spaghetti Bowl and Hawkins Boulevard.
“This is a poor investment by the state that will not improve traffic in El Paso because downtown is not the critical congestion point,” El Paso County Precinct 2 Commissioner David Stout said in a message to constituents Friday.
“All that new traffic will produce more pollution, which is bad for the health and quality of life of thousands of my constituents, especially children and the elderly,” Stout said.
TxDOT’s downtown project has not yet been formally approved and is “currently in the preliminary design phase and environmental process,” said Jennifer Wright, a TxDOT spokeswoman.
“The detailed design phase has not yet begun and is anticipated to begin later this year,” he said.
TxDOT is conducting a comprehensive environmental study of the highway upgrade, which will be presented to the public later this year, according to the agency. TxDOT said it will present its preferred option at a public hearing later this year, which will indicate which buildings the agency plans to acquire for the I-10 project.
Wright said TxDOT expects to begin soliciting bids for I-10 work next July.
Still, while the I-10 downtown segment project has not been formally approved, TxDOT has set aside $500 million to fund the first phase of the I-10 downtown modernization. The state’s seven-member transportation commission will review TxDOT’s so-called Unified Transportation Program, which includes a list of proposed projects, later this month and decide whether to approve funding for transportation infrastructure statewide, including work on I-10.
So while widening and repairing I-10 is not guaranteed, the fact that funding has been identified in TxDOT’s 2025 plan gives a “high level of certainty” that the project will begin next year in some form, Calvo said.
That means there is a time emergency to move forward with plans for the elevated park.
“Simultaneous construction schedules for the two projects will have less impact on the traveling public,” Wright said.
Who will pay for the elevated park?
Supporters of the elevated park idea say federal grants and possibly state funds could provide most of the money needed to build the plaza.
Yellen pointed to Dallas, which in March won an $80 million award from the U.S. Department of Transportation that the city will use to build pedestrian overpasses over four different freeways. Dallas will use $20 million of that federal grant to fund a second phase of construction at Klyde Warren Park, which was built over a major highway and is a model for El Paso’s elevated plaza.
“There are funding opportunities that we need to pursue to get as much state and federal funding as possible, to then make it affordable for our community,” Yellen said. “What that will look like, we don’t know yet. But that’s one of the next steps.”
He said the foundation and its partners will apply for a grant to provide some money to help with construction planning.
The deadline to apply for the federal “Reconnecting Communities” grant is Sept. 30. And since TxDOT said it expects to begin soliciting construction bids next summer and would build retaining walls to support the park’s weight, supporters of the elevated park need to show the state agency soon whether the park idea is likely to move forward, Yellen said.
“TxDOT needs some assurance that this can happen,” he said.
In addition to having to figure out how to finance construction, Calvo said it is also unclear who will cover the cost of operating and maintaining the park.
“Those questions are still in the process of being answered,” Calvo said.
There is about $607 million available for next year from the federal Reconnecting Communities grant program, which was established by the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that Congress and President Joe Biden passed in 2021.
The federal grants established by recent spending bills are competitive. Last year, the Reconnecting Communities program received 682 applications from all 50 states seeking $11.6 billion in funding. Of those, 131 projects won awards.
“These federal programs are quite competitive, yes. But I don’t see why” El Paso couldn’t win a grant, Calvo said.
However, “unless we organize and work together and develop these partnerships, our chances of achieving this are slim,” he said.
Within city government, discussions about how to pay for the elevated park may remain on the back burner until January, after a new mayor and up to five new City Council members take office, and perhaps after the city has hired a new city manager.
In Dallas, a bond voters approved in 2017 provided $20 million for Klyde Warren Park, which also got $36.7 million from state and federal transportation agencies and $50 million from private donors.
The CityArchRiver project in St. Louis, which provided pedestrian access to the park featuring the city’s famous arches, cost $380 million and was completed in 2018. It was funded by $69 million in state and federal grants, $90 million from a voter-approved bond and $221 million from private donations.
El Paso city officials, meanwhile, see little appetite among property owners here to take on a higher tax bill to pay for part of the elevated park.
“It’s a beautiful project,” Deputy City Manager Dionne Mack told El Paso Matters. “But can I say, ‘Oh, we have this beautiful elevated park. I’m sorry, can you get around that (pothole)? And I’m sorry your street is destroyed.’”
He pointed to the fact that private individuals covered approximately 45% of the cost of building Klyde Warren Park.
