Council approves engineering design contract for eroding Pearland Parkway bridge

The Pearland City Council voted to award an engineering design contract to GC Engineering to address erosion under the Pearland Parkway bridge over Clear Creek, after staff said the work will stabilize the bridge and develop construction documents.

City staff said the design phase is expected to take about 11 months and construction could begin around October 2027. Member Patel raised concerns that updated estimates increase the project's total cost from initial budget assumptions (earlier estimates around $800,000) to roughly $1.4 million, and asked whether the Economic Development Corporation (EDC) could pick up some construction costs. Staff and several council members agreed to explore EDC participation but said they did not want to hold up the design work. "We would like to do that through the longer term budgeting process," staff said.

Mahendra Rodrigo, the GC Engineering representative, told the council: "All the work that we have in this proposal, engineering services is going to be done in Pearland, our office in Pearland," and confirmed geotechnical and survey subs are local to Houston. The motion to approve the design contract passed unanimously, 7–0.