Then and Now: Ushering A Century-Old Landmark Corpus Christi Project into the Modern Day
Serving South Texas Nearly a Century Ago
In 2024, Freese and Nichols’ Coastal Infrastructure was awarded a new project for the City of Corpus Christi to study potential upgrades to Upper, Middle and Lower Broadway Streets, a family of streets in the historic downtown area, requiring special care for structures and landscaping registered with the Texas Historical Commission. But this isn’t the first time Freese and Nichols has played a major role in helping shape some of Corpus Christi’s most significant infrastructure.
Broadway Street separates downtown Corpus Christi from uptown and marks the location of a bluff that originally separated the city from the beach along Corpus Christi Bay. It was originally designed in 1913 by Alexander Potter, a consulting engineer out of New York City, and included a massive retaining wall to replace the bluff, along with the addition of associated ramps, stairways, tunnels, decorative balustrades, landscaping, and lighting that transformed a treacherous 20-foot natural feature into a landmark cityscape. This project turned “Broadway Street” into a collection of streets with “Upper Broadway” running parallel to the top of the old bluff, “Middle Broadway” ramping up and down between uptown and downtown, and “Lower Broadway” running parallel to the bottom of the bluff. Once the bluff’s muddy slope had been replaced, the City was able to develop the downtown area, including City Hall, which was built on Lower Broadway directly at the tunnel entrance between Upper and Lower Broadway. The combined features that make up Broadway were declared a Texas historical landmark in 1986.
In a related 1926 project, Freese and Nichols’ John Hawley, with assistance from Simon Freese, designed the City’s first sewage treatment plant and collection system that featured a trunk line beneath the same section of Broadway Street. The new Broadway Treatment Plant allowed the City to grow from a sleepy coastal village into a thriving seaport.
Below: Project drawings from Freese and Nichols’ 1926 sewer system include details from the landmark bluff improvements.
Same Place, Different Time
Nearly a century later, Freese and Nichols returns to the same project site for a large-scale improvements project of the Broadway Street area where components of the original sewer system are still operational. Video inspection of the system indicates that it is time to replace this old wastewater trunk line as part of the required upgrades to the roadway. Our firm will also be providing a range of additional expertise required for such a complex and culturally significant project, including roadway design, urban planning, landscape architecture, electrical lighting design, structural engineering, geotechnical engineering, and project management.
Shane Torno, Project Manager for the Broadway Improvements Project, says, “As Freese and Nichols prepares to study the requested roadway and utility improvements, assess the soundness of the structural elements, perform a slope stability study, and restore the landscaping and lighting, we already know that the old sewage pipe will need to be replaced. We will be the firm to design the new sanitary sewer upgrades to a system we originally designed nearly 100 years prior. How many firms get to do that?”
In the current design phase of the project, Freese and Nichols is providing preliminary design services from Upper through lower Broadway Street between Cooper’s Alley and Twigg Street. Our current scope includes a slope stability study, topography survey, subsurface utility exploration, televising of existing utility lines, cataloging existing landscape, and provide preliminary stormwater, utility, electrical, and roadway design. Our team will then provide recommendations for improvements with special consideration for working with the historic structures and landscaping. Due to the size and expected cost of the project, the full improvements are projected to be completed in two phases. Construction Phase 1 will include Lower and Middle Broadway reconstruction along with associated slope stability, utility improvements, streetscapes, lighting, and landscaping. This phase is expected to commence construction in 2026. Likewise, Construction Phase 2 will include Upper Broadway and is expected to commence construction in 2028.
The historic development remains a unique and beautiful part of Corpus Christi’s cityscape, important to preserve in the coming improvements.
