Fort Bend County, Program Management

In 2007, 2013, 2017, and 2020 voters in Fort Bend County voted to sell bonds in order to implement a mobility program throughout the County.  After each election, SPI was selected to provide project management services on a program level, in order to ensure that projects were completed correctly and in a timely manner.  SPI has managed over 35 projects, each with a different design consultant.  Responsibilities included fee negotiations with design consultants and construction materials testing firms; project oversight to ensure defined schedules were met; plan submittal reviews; utility coordination; coordination with other agencies (TxDOT, school districts, etc.); coordination with right-of-way acquisition firms; coordination with property owners; and coordination/reporting with Fort Bend County staff and elected officials.

SPI staff realized early in the program that there would be benefits to having pipeline and dry utility coordination handled by SPI, not the individual design consultants.  By handling this effort ourselves, we could build a database of contacts for the various companies, making it easier to get in touch with the many utility owners.  Furthermore, looking from a program level, we could prioritize projects based on the County’s urgency and the status of right-of-way acquisition.  This way, if one utility owner was impacted by multiple projects, SPI could easily dictate the order in which impacts needed to be resolved.

Precinct 3 needed an immediate solution for an access road to three schools, and worked with SPI under our project management agreement to find one. Charger Way is a roadway that serves three Lamar ISD schools, with no outlet at the north end and an intersection with FM 1093 at the south end; it’s the only road serving the schools without restricted access.  With FM 1093 under construction, the traffic on Charger Way was intolerable during school pickup and drop-off hours.  

After some discussion, it was discovered that an old roadbed existed from the north terminus of Charger Way west to Huggins Road.  The land is owned by a developer who has a good relationship with the Precinct, so the Commissioner asked permission to build a temporary road to connect Charger Way to Huggins Road that would serve motorists until a permanent connecting road is built farther south.  The developer agreed, and SPI was asked to expedite a design.  Using only aerial photography and a site visit, SPI completed a simple design of road geometrics, structure, signing, striping and traffic control in two weeks.  Upon completion of the drawings, the County’s Road & Bridge Department immediately began construction, and two weeks later the road was open to traffic.  This project was completed in December 2019.

As another part of the Program Management, SPI was assigned the management of two sidewalk projects in Precinct 3, and a consultant was selected to design both sidewalks together. After several unsuccessful attempts to negotiate a fair design fee with the consultant, SPI recommended to the Precinct that negotiations be cut off.  While one of the projects had a construction cost estimate that would exceed the project’s budget, the Trophy Lane sidewalk was estimated to easily fit within the budget and SPI offered to perform a quick, simple design ourselves.

With a field visit and aerial photography, SPI completed the design at about one-tenth the cost that had been quoted by the selected consultant.  The design and bid process were expedited so that the sidewalk could be constructed during Spring Break (the improvements were adjacent to an elementary school), and construction was successfully completed as scheduled, in March 2020.