Most Viewed Stories
ODC agrees to help expand JBS Parkway
The Odessa Development Board voted to approve committing $1.6 million to expand JBS Parkway into the industrial park subject to an acceptable contract.
The road will cost about $2.35 million, according to estimates from Landgraf, Crutcher & Associates, Inc., extending from Interstate 20 to FM 3503. In a public debate on the issue, board members discussed the cost and the potential benefits to the community from this investment. The vote was unanimous, with board member Tom McMinn absent.
City Manager Richard Morton said the road would lead to more tax revenue and jobs to the area. ODC has invested $26 million in the community, Morton said, and that has created a $650 million return on that investment.
“Help us keep that going,” he said.
Thomas Blackstone, president of Grow Odessa, said their organization has committed $800,000 to the construction of the road.
Most of the land on the eastern side of the industrial park, south of I-20, is owned by Grow Odessa, formerly Odessa Industrial Development Corp. Grow Odessa is a private, nonprofit group of business owners who buy land to be used for later development.
The eastern part of the industrial park is unmarketable because of the lack of access, John Landgraf said. Morton said the road would allow for more economic development in the industrial park, which would benefit everyone. Blackstone said there is an immediate need for this road.
There was some discussion about if ODC should try to recoup the money from future land sales before the board agreed that the money would be recouped from future economic development expected with the road construction.
The original idea, thought up around 2002, was to get the Texas Department of Transportation to build a six-lane road with curbs and gutters. The cost for that road was estimated around $11 million to build, Landgraf said. After state funding never materialized, community leaders decided at the end of 2010 to turn to local resources to get the road expanded. The road proposed now is similar to a county road, about 40 feet across, two lanes and no curbs or gutters.
Ector County Commissioners have also agreed to contribute funding and to long-term maintenance of the road after construction.
In other business, ODC authorized $5,000 in travel funds to research industrial water sources.
ODC President Austin Keith announced an initiative to research long-term sources of water for the city. With an aquifer of brackish, or salty, water beneath Odessa, he wanted the board to look the feasibility of desalinization as a potential water source. Desalination is where salty, or brackish, water is treated to remove the salt.
“It’s the most pressing issue out here,” board member Rick Carlton said.
The board approved one trip where individuals from the city would travel to El Paso to look at how El Paso uses desalination. The city is the site of the world's largest inland desalination plant, producing 27.5 million gallons of fresh water a day, according to its website.
Keith emphasized that ODC should be proactive and work with the Colorado River Municipal Water District. CRMWD Manager John Grant has been invited on the El Paso trip, Morton said.
