Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Street improvements on the square were part of the grant-funded Downtown Streetscape Project done in 2017.
With the looming possibility that a sewer line under the square might experience a “catastrophic failure,” city officials are bracing to spend a half million dollars or more to replace that line and to repair the intersection of Crockett and Bridge Streets, where asphalt that was part of the 2017 Downtown Streetscape Project is failing.
Public Works Director Rick Crownover said he feels that defects in the intersection might have been caused by the sewer line, which City Manager Chris Coffman said he thought was replaced shortly after his arrival in spring 2015.
Instead, all that was done was that a manhole was “rehabilitated,” Coffman said.
He attributed the situation to a “misunderstanding” or “untruth.”
Crownover was not with the city at that time. He joined the staff in 2016.
The decades-old clay tile pipe runs from the courthouse to Granbury Live and the former Celebration Hall, which sometime this year will become a restaurant and brewpub.
The matter was discussed at the regular meeting of the Granbury City Council on Tuesday, April 5.
At that meeting, the council voted unanimously to hire Enprotec/Hibbs & Todd for design and engineering services for the sewer relocation and street rehabilitation. The amount approved was $45,000.
According to city staff, the cost of the improvements will likely be between $450,000 and $600,000, depending on bids.
A document associated with the agenda item stated that the cost of materials is “skyrocketing and unpredictable but this is a vital need that should be seriously considered.”
Crownover told the council that 350 feet of the six-inch line is “compromised” and has tree roots in it.
He said that he is “trying to prevent any service interruptions of any kind” and hopes to correct the problem “before we have a catastrophic failure at some point.”
As for the intersection, Coffman said that “the base or sub-base is inadequate” and that he and city staff were proposing to redo the intersection with concrete.
Crownover said the work will take about 600 square yards of concrete. He noted that it is a “very congested intersection.”
The project will redirect the sewer line to flow north on Crockett Street and tie into the existing sanitary sewer collection system. During the design, the engineer will also evaluate an alternate route to connect into the sewer system on Bridge Street, according to city staff.
Street improvements were part of the Downtown Streetscape Project, which began on Feb. 6, 2017, and was completed in fall of that year.
Funded by a grant from the state’s Transportation Alternative Program, the project also included sidewalk, lighting, and landscaping improvements on the square.
After the city receives bids for the needed work, the City Council will award the bid and move forward with repairs.
As of yet, there is no timeline for when the work will be start or be completed, according to Communications Manager Jeff Newpher.
