In preparation for the construction of the new City Hall/Public Safety facilities, improvements must be made to Hord Street and surrounding streets.

Mexico City Council approved a resolution allowing City Manager Bruce Slagle to sign a task order with Engineering Surveys & Services, one of the city’s on-call consultants, for the first phase of the project at its Sept. 28 meeting.

Phase 1 of the Hord Street project will cost the city a lump sum of $49,810. Drew Williford, deputy city manager, reported that the 2026-27 Capital Improvement Sales Tax budget includes $650,000 for pavement maintenance, an amount that is “slightly higher” than usual, providing sufficient funding.

According to the proposal submitted by Engineering Surveys & Services, Phase 1 of the project will focus on the redesign of Hord Street from E. Jackson Street to E. Monroe Street. 

The proposal also includes four additional blocks of city streets that need to be evaluated for potential traffic-flow improvements. Phase 2 will involve redesigning Hord Street from E. Love Street to E. Monroe Street, as well as from E. Jackson Street to E. Promenade Street. Phase 3 will involve restoring the private portions of E. Monroe and E. Jackson streets.

The city of Mexico’s engineering staff had originally considered completing the work internally. Williford said there were two key reasons for having a consulting firm handle the work: managing an already high workload and streamlining complex projects. 

He explained that city staff has to get back to managing the workload as the stormwater improvement projects wrap up rather than allowing the work to manage staff.

“The premise there is that we try to balance how much we do internally with how much we end up farming out for consulting work,” he said. 

Engineering Surveys & Services is already performing civil site and surveying work for the new City Hall/Public Safety facility. Both projects have elevation concerns in their designs, which add to their complexity, and the firm has confirmed that a single project manager will oversee them, according to the council agenda memo submitted by Williford. 

“I would much rather have the same consultant who is doing one project do both,” Williford said. 

To support project costs, Williford explained that he is looking to the Economic Development Administration’s Public Works and Economic Development Facilities grant program. 

“That’s a grant I have kind of keyed on to in the last year or two, and it looks very promising for what we’re trying to do,” Williford said.