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For the rapidly growing city of Granbury, there is much on the horizon in 2019.

“We’re busy,” City Manager Chris Coffman said late last week.

With major projects in the works, “busy” might be a bit of an understatement.

Here is what Coffman had to say about the current state of various city-led enterprises and what the next 12 months will bring:

WATER/WASTEWATER PLANTS

“The biggest thing we’re working on is water and sewer infrastructure. Our city is growing. Phase 2 of the (new) water treatment plant will double the capacity.”

Although it seems “awful quick” to already be starting Phase 2 when the new plant went online just last year, the city’s growth, along with the city no longer being in contract with the Brazos River Authority’s Lake Granbury Surface Water and Treatment System (SWATS) plant, means that the city must begin expanding the new plant. That has to be done in order to comply with rules set forth by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).

City officials thought it would take three to five years to hit the demand level at which TCEQ’s expansion rules would kick in, but it happened much quicker than that.

Several development projects that have not yet been publicized are waiting in the wings for Phase 2, Coffman said. They include 200- and 135-home subdivisions, and another 200 apartments.

Also, the final phase of Harbor Lakes will probably be built out by next year. That’s 135 lots, he said.

“We’ve got to get that infrastructure built to accommodate all that.”

The city will rehab its aging wastewater treatment plant and build an additional plant east on U.S. 377.

“We’re going to start it but it won’t get finished because it takes probably six months to get a permit from TCEQ. But the engineering’s already started and as soon as the money’s borrowed we’ll be building something.”

The construction period will probably be 12-18 months.

No longer will all of the city’s sewer lines run under the lake to the current plant.

“That’s too many gallons a day at that site. We’ve got to get creative. It’s very expensive to put a line in the water. We started looking at ways to have a long-range plan to where 20 years from now (sewage) won’t be pumped under the lake. It’s going someplace else.”

The city is working to finish new distribution lines for water that were necessary for distributing water throughout the city after the SWATS contract ended in November 2017. As part of that work, the city built a new water tower on Meander Road.

“The sewer treatment work and the water treatment plant, those things are huge. That’s $48 million worth of capital improvements we’re working on, and we just finished $34 million, $35 million on water and sewer treatment, so we’re playing a lot of catch-up and we’re also planning for the future.

“The focus has been for the council to continue planing the infrastructure and come up with a new fee impact schedule. It was part of last year’s strategic plan.

“The fees are probably about 20 percent of the actual cost to extend service to those people, so (developers) are getting a great bargain and we’re being competitive with other cities.”

(The City Council was to consider and possibly vote on that new fee structure at Tuesday night’s regular council meeting, which occurred after the HCN went to press.)

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

“Our goal this budget cycle is to work closely with the county and Chamber of Commerce to partner to address economic development in maybe a new way than we have in the past.”

The Commissioners Court has three new members, Coffman noted. He said that meetings involving the three entities may be held to formulate an economic development policy in hopes of attracting more industry and jobs.

“We also talked about possibly hiring a person to provide economic development services either through a city department or through another organization like the chamber or maybe recreating what we had before it all fell apart.”

The city and county used to equally contribute to the Lake Granbury Economic Development Corporation, but the organization was disbanded several years ago.

Some cities have a special tax for economic development that allows for such things as the creation of industrial parks, where land is given to companies that would provide a good number of jobs.

“We didn’t do that here. We said, ‘Let’s keep the property taxes low.’ It went before the voters and that’s what happened. So we have a different scenario.”

The city has “lost several projects” involving Fortune 500 companies, he said.

“They come and they end up getting free land somewhere else.”

Might Granbury impose an economic development tax?

“I don’t think the voters would ever willingly vote to raise their property tax.”

Granbury’s property tax rate, Coffman noted, is “low comparative to other cities.”

Do people here want growth, or would they prefer that Granbury remain a relatively small town?

“There’s the charm of the small city, and we’re working hard to keep that. But you talk to business owners, everybody wants economic development, jobs. They want their kids to be able to get a job here when they graduate from high school. Some kids aren’t going to go to college, but if they do we want them to come back and have a place to work. The industrial base is what we’re really missing in Granbury.”

TOURISM

The city is “moving along with tourism” following the City Council’s defunding of the independently run but city-funded Visit Granbury, Inc. last September. Tourism is now back under the city’s control (though still under the VGI name) and recent hire Tammy Dooley has “done so much already” in the city’s quest to increase bookings at local lodging establishments and at the Lake Granbury Conference Center.

Kyle Smith is still the manager at the Conference Center, Coffman said, but he reports to Dooley.

Though Coffman acknowledged that the square is “a destination” that draws tourists, “we’ve got a lot more folks out there doing a whole lot more for retail than what happens on the square, and they sometimes feel less important – and they aren’t.”

Remodeling of the old Kroger building is progressing, with stores such as Five Below, Ulta Beauty and HomeGoods expected to open at what will be the Granbury Lakeside Center this summer.

Small restaurants are planned for three pad sites on the parking lot.

Harbor Lakes Drive is being extended to Crawford Court, eliminating what used to be a lighted, but awkward, ingress and egress at that location.

Coffman hopes that once the project is finished, nearby strip shopping centers will also be rehabbed, possibly through reinvestment incentives.

NEW POLICE STATION

The Granbury Police Department, housed for years inside City Hall and busting at the seams, has been waiting a long time for a standalone police station. It’s been talked about for years, particularly during the annual budget workshops that take place every summer.

With several costly and needed projects in the works, that new police station still won’t happen this year. However, Coffman hopes to move toward building and opening a new police station by 2021.

The city has purchased 40 acres for that purpose on Loop 567 across from Reunion Court, a “prime location” that will allow officers to quickly respond to any calls within the city.

“The Police Department, back in 2009 they put a pencil to it and it was about $9 million. When I got here I got a different architect and they met with police staff and fine-tuned it and trimmed it down to about $7 million or $8 million, something like that.”

Now, though, with the purchase of the land, the city is once again going to “start from scratch” with the police station’s specific location in mind. This is to ensure maximum efficiency of the layout.

Coffman also wants to make sure that plans will allow for easy expansion that will not disrupt the building’s “flow.” He wants the new police station to be useful for the next “50 to 75 years.”

Once the project finally moves forward, construction will probably take “eight to 10 months.”

TRAFFIC

“377 is on everyone’s mind. During the peak hours it’s really tough.”

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), Coffman said, is working on a new environmental study and a new plan to expand U.S. 377 to a six-lane divided highway from State Highway 144 to Fall Creek Highway.

There was talk of this years ago, but it was believed that the plan had been abandoned, in part because local officials felt that a bypass in Cresson should be top priority.

Ground is expected to break on the Cresson project very soon. It took years to bring it to fruition.

The 144-377 project is on TxDOT’s website, but don’t get excited.

“When that will happen, I can’t begin to guess. Ten years? Twelve years? Fourteen years? It was a $100 million project back when they did the study.”

Coffman indicated that, for now at least, there appears to be little or no hope for the proposed Comanche Peak tollway that would allow for speedier trips to and from DFW Airport.

“We’ve talked to them about a Comanche Peak tollway. They’ve done a study, they ran the numbers and said there’s not enough traffic to justify it.”

AIRPORT EXPANSION

The city has received two years’ worth of grant funding from TxDOT’s Aviation Division for expansion of the Granbury Regional Airport. It is a five-year project. When completed, corporate jets will be able to take off and land there.

The portion of the project that involves Brazos Electric, including a new substation, should be completed by March, Coffman said. Observers can see the transmission lines, he noted.

All real estate acquisitions for the project have been completed, including easements and right-of-way.

The city is working through the final design. Engineering plans are 99 percent complete and should be finished by the end of this month.

Environmental reassessment required by the Federal Aviation Administration is also almost finished.

Ground probably won’t be broken until March or April of next year.

Paving/resurface work won’t be done until the final payment is made to the city in 2021. The project is expected to be completed in 2022.

ELECTRIC LINES

This is the third year of incremental improvements to electric lines.

“Increasingly we’re beefing up and replacing the old system and upgrading the power. If the power goes off in one part of town we’re trying to get to where it will be fed by another system.

“Also, we’ve spent a lot of time and effort to ensure the trees are trimmed off of our lines so when they get iced over they don’t cause failures.”

Electric meters are being replaced over a five-year period. The replacements are being done incrementally instead of the project being funded through the issuance of bonds.

“We’re doing it slow, and ultimately it will be able to radio-read and disconnect from City Hall.”

PARKS DEPARTMENT

A new public boat dock will be built this year by the historic Neely house at Lambert Branch Park.

Nothing significant will likely happen in 2019 regarding the property around Decker Gym and Decker Field that the city recently acquired.

The city accepted the property from the Granbury Independent School District. The two entities came to an agreement after a year of negotiations.

“There’s all kinds of dreaming you can do,” Coffman said about what the city could do with the acreage at the West Bridge Street site.

“We’re going to try to clean it up and make it safe. The bleachers are in bad repair. We’re going to do some asbestos abatement (at Decker Gym) and try to make it safe, fix the roof to where it doesn’t leak and make sure we’re not tearing it up by neglect.”

The property and its potential future uses will likely be discussed when the council holds a strategic planning workshop in February, Coffman said.

kcruz@hcnews.com | 817-573-7066, ext. 258