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Second Causeway to SPI Estimated to Cost $250 Million Less Than Initial Plan

6 years 10 months 2 weeks ago Thursday, May 11 2017 May 11, 2017 May 11, 2017 6:51 PM May 11, 2017 in News

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND – A second causeway to South Padre Island in the works will now cost much less than what planners expected.

The $700 million project will now cost only $450 million.

Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority executive director Pete Sepulveda said they started a phase of the bridge development called value engineering.

He said they had to review two things: the environmental impact of the bridge and the original design.

He said the change in costs came from rethinking the original design.

“You bring in individuals that have not been involved in the project; they’re not familiar with the project, fresh minds. They come in, they look at the schematics, they look at aerials, they look at the alignment and they make recommendations,” he said.

The second causeway is planned to be 8 miles long and will run over the Laguna Madre.

Sepulveda said the original causeway design will now be broken into two smaller causeways that run about 50 feet apart.

He said that design turns out to be much cheaper and lowers the environmental impact, which has been a major hurdle to the development process.  

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