32 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE • March/April 2018 TheCoastalBend.com The new bridge will be fabricated in concrete segments, requiring limited maintenance and with a projected lifespan of 170 years! Protected pedestrian and cycling paths, along with semi-circular observa- tion decks, will be provided in both directions. Of most consequence to communities on both sides of the new bridge is its new route—greater height requires greater distance, so the endpoints must be moved much far- ther apart. To designers, the new route should have ap- peared obvious. By simply undoing the rather severe curve that takes drivers onto the current bridge from North Beach, and instead continuing the route in a straight line south from the Nueces Bay Causeway, the new structure will ascend at a much less severe grade. The Crosstown Expressway will connect directly to the new bridge route from the city side of the chan- nel, and it is this segment of the route that briefly embroiled the project in a national controversy that threatened hundreds of millions in federal funding. The Hillcrest and Solomon Coles neighborhoods, which run along the southern bank of the ship channel, have existed in a state of plight for generations. The area became desegregated in 1944 and for decades thrived as the city’s one predominantly Black neighborhood. Not long after refinery construction spread along its northern boundary, Hillcrest home values plummeted, and by 2010, only 30% of residential properties were owner-occupied—most of the rest were rented to low income residents, some of them in the country illegally. TxDot had allocated millions of dollars to purchase properties in the path of the new bridge, and to assist residents, including renters, with the costs of relocat- ing, along with the difference in increased rent for a set period of time. Republican members of the Texas con- gressional delegation, led by District 27 Representative Blake Farenthold, objected to displacement benefits being paid to illegal immigrants. In turn, the federal Department of Transportation threatened to pull fund- ing for the entire project at the end of 2016. Apparently accepting that the Trump Administration would drop the objection, the Obama transportation department released the funding two days before leaving office. With construction of the new Harbor Bridge un- derway and on schedule, its completion in April 2020 will mark a new start for almost fifty acres of land on both sides of the channel, where the current bridge now stands. The old bridge and its connected infrastructure will be gone by the end of 2021, and bold, highly ambi- tious plans to redevelop the vacated property on North Beach, and the zone known as the SEA District, are be- ginning to emerge. While ideas for a radical new look for the city may seem like fantasy now, their coming to realty would be as significant to Corpus Christi’s future as the new bridge itself. At a time when the Coastal Bend, led by its port industries, is growing at an unprecedented rate with no slowing in sight, developers and elected officials should strike while the iron is hot. For a change, let’s not let the climate of opportunity pass us by.