Gateways on horizon: TxDOT studies new I-10 frontage roads from Downtown to Spaghetti Bowl

Plans in the works to build gateway boulevards along Interstate 10 from Downtown to near the Spaghetti Bowl in Central El Paso would require acquisition of part of the Downtown railyard, and may force some businesses to relocate. 

Gateways, or frontage roads, also are proposed to be built on both sides of I-10 from Executive Center Boulevard in West El Paso to Downtown. Those likely won’t require property acquisitions because initial plans call for putting them on elevated bridges overlapping portions of I-10, said Hugo Hernandez, project manager for Reimagine I-10, TxDOT’s planning study of the highway through El Paso.

Whether TxDOT will need to acquire and demolish buildings for the proposed, two- to three-lane gateways, and associated highway entrances and exits, won’t be known until environmental and design studies are completed. The studies are set to begin in the fall and set to finish in the next three to four years, Hernandez said.

TxDOT also would need to acquire parts of the Downtown railyard, now abutting I-10, from Union Pacific Railroad to create the gateway on the south side of I-10 in Downtown, Hernandez said.

Officials had some "very preliminary" discussions with Union Pacific about the railyard land, but serious talks will have to wait until the environmental study is done, he said.

Some El Paso business leaders support the proposed plan, but people in the Sunset Heights neighborhood, near Downtown and bordering I-10, don’t like the idea of buildings being demolished to add gateways next to their neighborhood, said Sito Negron, president of the Sunset Heights Improvement Association.

They also don’t like the idea of the proposed elevated gateways between Executive Center and Downtown, because they would be "unsightly, expensive, and won't provide the bang for the buck,” Negron said.

Studies indicate the need for gateways along I-10 in the Downtown area to Piedras Street in Central El Paso, to improve traffic flow and to better manage traffic when an accident occurs on I-10 in the Downtown area, Hernandez said.  

More: I-10 overpass beams break, traffic backs up severely after closures from crash

The gateway plans are in addition to TxDOT concepts for expanding the sunken portion of I-10 from Campbell Street to Santa Fe Street in Downtown. Adding gateways also are proposed for that area.

The I-10 changes, from Executive Center to the Spaghetti Bowl, have an estimated cost of $1.1 billion, which would make it the most costly highway project in El Paso history, TxDOT officials have said.

Businesses on Missouri Avenue may need to be moved for gateway plan 

Missouri Avenue, along an almost two-mile stretch on the north side of I-10 in Downtown to just before Piedras Street, would be incorporated into the proposed gateway on the north side of the highway, under preliminary concepts. That’s where many businesses and some homes are located, and may be future demolition targets.

Gateways currently exist from the Spaghetti Bowl to Piedras on the north side of I-10 and from the Spaghetti Bowl to just before Cotton Street on the south side of the Interstate. Gateways also exist on both sides of the Interstate from the Spaghetti Bowl east. 

KEEP UP with El Paso highway projects.Click here to subscribe to elpasotimes.com  

Greg Pugh, owner of the 4-year-old Avocado Café at 1021 E Missouri Ave., near the Downtown I-10 exit, said he'd hate to lose his location, where, he said, he’s built a loyal following.

The café, which used to be part of a Justice of the Peace chapel where he and his wife got married, has “lots of quirks that make it work for me,” Pugh said recently as he made a drink for a customer in his tiny restaurant.

“I’d put my name on a petition not to build it (gateway), but if I found I had to move, I would embrace it,” Pugh said. “It wouldn’t be the death of my business. Customers would follow me wherever I go.”

Bobby Bowling IV, whose company owns a three-story office building at 2505 E. Missouri Ave., said he anticipates TxDOT may need to buy and demolish the building if the Gateway plan is done because, he said, there’s not much room to expand Missouri in that area if the building remains.

Bowling has no problem selling the building, bought two years ago, to the state agency as long as he gets market value for it, he said.

“I think expansion is good, I am a builder and developer,” said Bowling, who owns Tropicana Homes and other related real estate development companies with his brother, Randy Bowling. “It’s something good for El Paso to widen I-10” and add “more legitimate access roads” along the highway, he said.

More: Border Highway expansion displaces businesses

Buying properties wouldn't be cheap if needed for gateway project 

Tanny Berg, vice president of the Central Business Association, which represents businesses mostly in the Downtown area, said some may need to be relocated, but the gateways are needed in the Downtown area to alleviate traffic congestion on the interstate, he said.

“The biggest concern is the financing,” he said. “TxDOT eventually will have to pay market value” for any acquired properties, even if condemnation is required, Berg said. “They can’t take property for free.”

Negron, the Sunset Heights leader, said not only would the cost of acquiring property be expensive, it also would take “millions of dollars of property from the city’s tax base.”

Missouri Avenue is not in the Sunset Heights neighborhood, but Negron also does not like the prospect of buildings being demolished and gateways added near any neighborhood because that will make those areas less pedestrian friendly, he maintained.

Gateways are designed for a higher volume of vehicles to move faster than on regular city streets, Negron said. That would make areas near the gateways less walkable. The latest city plan, revised in 2012, calls for enhancing pedestrian friendly areas in city neighborhoods, he said. 

Jennifer Wright, a TxDOT spokesperson in El Paso, said, “Everything is on the table in this process. We will examine all options."

Public meetings will be held  in the future on concepts for the gateways and other proposed changes for the I-10 corridor through Central El Paso, TxDOT officials said.

Vic Kolenc may be reached at 546-6421; vkolenc@elpasotimes.com; @vickolenc on Twitter.