The effort to build a deck park suspended over Interstate 10 in Downtown El Paso hit a snag last week after the U.S. Department of Transportation did not award El Paso a $5 million federal grant, which would have paid for construction blueprints.
The project’s backers, however, plan to keep the concept alive and continue seeking money elsewhere.
“We are very optimistic about the project despite this news. It will be transformative for the region – adding critical recreational and community space, and needed housing,” Tracy Yellen, CEO of the Paso del Norte Community Foundation, told El Paso Matters. “We will evaluate the best way to move forward without this particular funding award.”
The deck park, estimated to cost at least $207 million to build, would form a cap on top of the sunken stretch of I-10 in Downtown. The site would span five blocks, from Santa Fe Street east to Kansas Street, and feature numerous amenities such as an event space, a dog park and gardens.
“It would have been great to have been selected for this (grant). But we knew it was a long shot, and we need to continue working,” said Eduardo Calvo, executive director of the Metropolitan Planning Organization, which was the main applicant for the grant along with the city, El Paso County and the Paso del Norte Community Foundation.
“The deck project itself, I think, is still a very good project for the region. So we need to continue working on it and figuring out a way of how to design it and build it,” Calvo said.
The deck park will intersect with the Texas Department of Transportation’s project to conduct a major renovation of I-10 in Downtown, which will include widening that segment of the freeway. So, the deck park’s supporters want to build it at the same time as TxDOT’s highway project, and create more public green space instead of having the wide, open trench with fast-moving cars that exists today on the northern edge of Downtown.
The MPO – the region’s transportation planner – and its partners applied for the federal grant in September with the hope of using the $5 million along with some local funds to craft detailed construction designs of the deck. After that, the plan was to, ideally, use the design blueprints to solidify the project, coax additional cash out of the federal government and develop the deck park using few, if any, local taxpayer dollars.
The path ahead now is murkier, but Yellen and Calvo said they’ll try to secure funds from other sources, such as the state Legislature or from other federal grants such as the RAISE grant program.
All eight City Council representatives have said they don’t support using taxpayer dollars – such as a voter-approved bond – to pay for the deck park.
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Last fall, City Manager Dionne Mack said she also didn’t support directing taxpayer dollars to the deck park while city departments, such as street maintenance, remain badly underfunded. Private donors, she pointed out, paid for about 40% of the $72 million cost to develop La Nube STEAM Discovery Center.
Our office will continue to work with the county, the nonprofit and the private sectors, and the Metropolitan Planning Organization to look at ways to get this phase of the project funded,” Mayor Renard Johnson said in a statement. “This is a once in a generation opportunity that will inject economic development investment into our community.”
The so-called Reconnecting Communities grant program that the MPO applied for was established by the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that Congress and President Joe Biden passed in 2021.
The grants from the program were competitive to win. This year, 81 projects around the U.S. won grants worth $544 million. But the program received over 400 project applications seeking $3 billion in funding – meaning only 20% of applications were selected for a grant. Last year, the program awarded $3.3 billion in grants, but received applications seeking $11.6 billion in funding.
El Paso sought the grant award for the deck park last year, too, but wasn’t selected either year.
“We have not yet received feedback from USDOT. We will reach out with our partners to learn more. We understand that the proposal scored very high the first time it was submitted,” Yellen said. “We will continue to work with TxDOT and USDOT and local community partners to submit proposals to all available funding sources.”
The city of El Paso declined an interview request and directed questions to the MPO. In the grant application, the city committed to put up $750,000 of matching funds, while the county said it would contribute $1 million, and the Paso del Norte put up $250,000 from donations.
TxDOT’s I-10 work Downtown will dictate when the deck park has to move forward.
The state commission that governs TxDOT last fall approved $500 million for the Downtown I-10 reconstruction – the next phase in the major renovation of I-10 in El Paso that’s been ongoing in recent years. TxDOT is still conducting an in-depth environmental study of the highway modernization for the Downtown segment, which will be presented to the public this summer, according to the agency.
Calvo has said the I-10 modernization is badly needed to renovate the pavement and pillars along the highway. And TxDOT wants to add the lane in the Downtown segment because its computer models predict traffic will become much worse in that part of the highway in the coming decades, as El Paso grows and spreads out further.
Many in El Paso – and elsewhere in Texas – have challenged TxDOT’s conclusion that adding lanes eases congestion along highways. And the Texas A&M Transportation Institute didn’t list the I-10 segment in Downtown El Paso as the most congested stretch of highway in El Paso in its most recent report from 2023.
Opponents have said a bigger highway will likely attract more cars to fill the additional lane, and also create more air pollution for neighborhoods near Downtown. And adding another lane runs counter to the city’s stated goals of becoming a more walkable city that requires less driving, not more.
Despite some public pushback, TxDOT has said it will present its preferred design option at the public hearing late this summer, which will indicate which buildings the agency plans to acquire for the I-10 project. The highway widening will likely require TxDOT to buy and demolish properties along the freeway, such as on Yandell Drive.
The I-10 construction work Downtown will “follow conventional interstate construction,” said TxDOT spokesperson Jennifer Wright. “As with all construction projects, there is the potential for the traveling public to be affected.”
TxDOT previously expected to begin soliciting bids in July for the work on I-10 in Downtown, but the agency said Wednesday it likely won’t seek bids until next year. That delay before TxDOT’s work Downtown commences could help give supporters more time to find other sources of funding to advance the deck park.
“This is not a complete setback,” Calvo said of El Paso not winning the grant award. “The key point, the critical point, is to have the design of the structure of the deck ready in time for when the Downtown 10, the TxDOT project, goes out for construction. And that’s still very doable.”
TxDOT has said it will build the retaining walls that will bear the weight of the deck atop the highway. Even though TxDOT hasn’t selected its final project design, the deck park can fit into any of the designs under consideration, Wright said.
“We have been coordinating with the deck plaza project team,” Wright said.
There are still questions over how management of the deck park would work, and Yellen has said her foundation could pay for ongoing operations and maintenance costs. Supporters say other details can be worked out in the future, after designs of the deck park are complete and the full cost of construction is clearer.
“It is important to build the deck structure for the future deck park at the same time TxDOT works on I-10,” Yellen said. “It will be more cost effective and less disruptive to the community. The park landscaping and amenities can happen later, if needed.”
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