Nueces County details $2.5 million Ortiz Park improvements, historical review to begin

Nueces County officials on the commissioners court said they are moving forward with roughly $2,500,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds to upgrade Ortiz Park, a regional park serving Robstown, Calallen and surrounding rural areas.

County Inland Parks staff and the project architect told the court the work will replace noncompliant restrooms with ADA-compliant facilities, add a covered shade area adjacent to the new restrooms, provide sidewalk connections to accessible parking and replace the existing one-mile walking track rather than patching it. The project team also said it will carefully relocate an existing park plaque now mounted on restrooms slated for demolition so the park—s historical marker remains visible.

"It is going to be a great project," said Robert Garcia, the project architect with Lehi Daikama, as he summarized the scope and schedule. "We can do some submittal reviews and shop drawing work now so we can hit the ground running once the historical commission study is complete." Garcia added that a preconstruction meeting with the successful contractor, identified in the record as RxDX, has already been held.

The project has been flagged by the Texas Historical Commission for further review because portions of the work could disturb an area the commission identified as a former labor camp in Robstown. Project staff told the court that a permit from the Texas Historical Commission has been issued to begin the investigation and that work to study the potentially affected areas was scheduled to start on Friday. County officials said they will review the investigation—s findings and coordinate required mitigation before major ground-disturbing work begins.

Edward, identified as the county—s Inland Parks director, said staff will continue administrative tasks now so construction can proceed as soon as the historical review clears the disturbed areas. "We still have things that we can do," Edward said, citing submittal reviews, schedules of values for pay applications and shop drawing reviews for shade structures.

County officials told the court they remain committed to a target completion date in December of next year. No change to that target was adopted at the meeting.

The court heard from multiple commissioners who emphasized the park—s heavy community use and urged staff to minimize further delays. The project budget and funding source were presented as ARPA funds allocated to Ortiz Park; commissioners did not change the funding source at the meeting.

Provenance: Transcript discussion begins at 00:06:39 and continues through 00:13:20 (first presentation comments to schedule and historical commission permit).