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After years of conversations, planning and design, Edinburg finally broke ground on a downtown parking garage near the courthouse last week.

The project was prompted by years of ongoing community frustration with the area’s lack of public parking and in conjunction with the now-completed Hidalgo County Courthouse.

The construction is slated to begin in early November on the corner of McIntyre Street and N. Closner Boulevard and is projected to open early 2027.

The garage will be three-stories tall, with 268 parking spaces, and free to park in, for the public’s convenience.

According to Edinburg’s Director of Engineering, Mardoqueo Hinojosa, the county had initially requested only 225 spaces. But, with the current plan, they were able to squeeze in 43 additional spaces.

Hinojosa said the county also plans to add an additional 104 parking spaces at the corner of N. 12th Avenue and E. Loeb Street by late December.

RE-ROUTING FOR CONSTRUCTION

While the garage’s construction is underway, car and pedestrian traffic will be temporarily rerouted starting Nov. 5. One southbound lane of N. Closner Boulevard and a section of W. Kuhn Street will be closed.

Additionally, the sidewalk in front of the construction zone on N. Closner Boulevard will also be closed and all foot traffic will be rerouted to N. 10th Avenue.

According to Roxanne Lerma, Edinburg’s director of communications and media, the city has expanded the sidewalks along N. 10th Avenue “to provide residents with a safe walking route.”

“We ask for the community’s patience during construction as these temporary inconveniences will bring lasting benefits to our city,” said Mayor Ramiro Garza Jr.

The city is directing community members to park in the L2 and L3 parking lots located along N. Closner Boulevard for the duration of the project.

Shuttle accessible public parking will also be available in lots A2 and A3, located on the corner of S. 12th Avenue and E. Mahl Street.

WHY THE DELAY?

The garage’s design phase began over three years ago, in early 2022.

Hinojosa said a reason the parking garage project has taken so long to get off the ground is partly because of the project’s cost. The initial bid was “quite above” their budget, he said.

However, the city opted to go with a design build process — meaning a single entity will handle both the design and the construction of the project under one contract — which brought the estimated cost down to $6.2 million.

That wasn’t the only way the city cut costs.

The original plan called for an additional floor and commercial spaces on the ground floor, but these aspects were cut in order to bring down the project’s price tag.

“We have to be very responsible with our budget, and we were able to achieve that,” said Hinojosa.

The post What to expect: Edinburg to begin construction on long-awaited parking garage appeared first on MyRGV.com.