THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE • March/April 2018 21 TheCoastalBend.com Editor No Season for Indecision March-April 2018 L egend says that Spanish explorer Alonzo Alvarez de Piñeda and his party of 270 men, sailing on four ships from Jamai- ca, were the first Europeans to discover Corpus Christi Bay in 1519, having crossed into it on the annual Roman Catholic day of celebration, the Feast of Corpus Christi. Pennsylvanian Henry Kinney came to the newly independent Republic of Texas in 1838 in search of land and opportunity, and a year later established a ranching operation and (illegal) trading post with his partner, William Aubrey, on the western bluff above Corpus Christi Bay. After a Matamoros rancher led a band of 300 gunmen to the post with the intent of reclaiming the land granted to him by the Mexican revolutionary government, the outgunned and outmanned Kinney negotiated the purchase of the land. By the end of 1842, the village of Corpus Christi had been established with the opening of a post office, and about fifty original families began the modern history of what we now know as the Coastal Bend. Those events, 499 and 176 years ago, respectively, will be joined in his- torical significance by the period in which we are living now, to those looking back at South Texas two centuries from now. Even more significant than the rebuilding period after the Great 1919 Hurricane, including the construction of the downtown seawall, or the opening of the port, or building of the current Harbor Bridge, or even the opening of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi and the Army Depot—our current time will be looked back at as the historic growth spurt of the Texas Coastal Bend. You will learn in this edition how the Port of Corpus Christi is quietly lead- ing the United States in the newly-allowed export of oil and natural gas—and how it could become one of the top energy supply routes in the entire world. You will get a detailed look at the new Harbor Bridge and the radical changes that are coming to downtown, North Beach and the north side of the city—all within the next three years. For the Bridging the Future story, we examined the three most active and potentially serious proposals for sections of almost fifty acres of land that will be vacated once the current Harbor Bridge is taken down. It was the effort to investigate those three proposals that rekindled some of that sad sense of disappointment to which so many of us have become accus- tomed over the years—but only regarding one of them, the 1914 Nueces County Courthouse. For those of us who’ve been here long enough to have been inside the building when it was a functioning facility, the news we report in this edition will come as no surprise. The second proposal involves the largest stretch of land, located under and feeding the current bridge on the city side of the ship channel, in what is known as the SEA District, and in the zone that includes the old courthouse. While a proposed Riverwalk-style canal, the centerpiece of “SEAtown,” is a stellar con- cept that has worked just about everywhere it’s been tried, the would-be devel- oper carries no weight of seriousness. But there is hope! If you picked up a copy of our January/February edition, you might have read about Dallas developer Jeff Blackard, and his relentless effort to turn the abandoned and overgrown Pharaoh Valley Country Club golf course into a game- changing, $300 million Italian-themed village—and the inexplicable resistance he has faced from less than one percent of the neighborhood’s voting homeown- ers. In the Barisi Village Challenge, we took you down a depressing Memory Lane of missed opportunities for Corpus Christi to take giant leaps of progress, and how we’ve been paying the price for at least four decades. The time to break that pattern is now. The only thing that could be sicker and sadder than watching the slow decay of the once-grand 1914 courthouse—a process now forty years along with no end in sight, until it can be legally destroyed nine years from now—is how blasted- stupid we are going to look if it’s still setting there rotting in the shadow of a sparkling, new $1 billion bridge. It is abundantly clear that the Nueces County Commissioners Court have put their heads back in the sand on the old courthouse issue. Less than a year after local news media gathered at the signing of a purchase agreement for the 1914 Nueces County Courthouse by Nueces County Courthouse Partners, LLC, we found that the company’s corporate charter was forfeited in January. Have we heard anything from the Commissioners Court? Have the local news media followed up on the project? The old courthouse issue is important. It was important in 1977, and it is about to be very important. Action needs to be taken this year. Roll it into the bridge budget; give it away to a worthy developer and throw in a few million; get an exemption from the State so it can be demolished; take it apart piece by piece; blow it up accidently on purpose—but do something with it now! North Beach occupies a place in the heart of almost every long-time Coastal Bender. For some, the memories are good, maybe a little wild, maybe purely joy- ful—maybe not as happy—and for some, life-changing events have taken place on North Beach. Most of us have blocked the dark “Corpus Christi Beach” years out of our minds, but in all, the beach is at the heart of the city’s identity. I hope you will read about the Blackard/Frazier proposal for North Beach, A.B., “After Bridge,” in Bridging the Future. Not only is it not half-baked, it’s re- ally cool. More importantly, it is offered by a serious development group, with a proven track record working at or above this level, with a serious plan, and asking for not a dime from anyone—in fact, they are abundantly well financed and their commitment to this and other projects is backed by millions in existing investments, i.e. they put their money where their mouths are. And they get it. The Coastal Bend that our kids’ kids’ kids’ will know is being planned right now. The major changes that will endure the 170-year life expectancy of the 2020 Harbor Bridge are in their infancy at this moment. We are rebuilding after a hurricane that will alter development on the islands permanently. Our eco- nomic role in the world’s energy industry could triple or more in a decade. Our healthcare and education infrastructures are starting to resemble the major Texas cities—and let’s not forget that we live in one of the most beautiful and desirable places in the United States. In the last six months, most of us have witnessed, and many of us have participated in, the daunting effort to return life to normal following Hurricane Harvey—and the work isn’t half done. But thousands of our neighbors have sac- rificed more than ever and have worked harder than ever before in their lives— because they had to. If we apply half, or even a third, of that effort to that cotton-pickin’ court- house, maybe we could prove to ourselves that half-arse isn’t how we do things here, and that we can jump on a challenge and meet it. —The Editor