The Cinnamon Shore North development is pictured on Saturday, March 9. The Port Aransas City Council recently unanimously voted to build a new access road on an easement 165 feet south of the southern property border of Cinnamon Shore North. Staff photo by Kathryn Cargo
The Port Aransas City Council has officially decided to move the location of a planned new beach access road.
For the purpose of building the proposed road, the council, at a meeting on Thursday, March 21, unanimously voted to vacate a city-owned easement directly adjacent to the south side of Cinnamon Shore North that stretched from the beach to State Highway 361.
The plan now is to build the road on an easement 165 feet south of the southern property border of Cinnamon Shore North.
The resolution the council passed states: “The Council finds that the exchange will be beneficial to the City because the alternative location is preferable, can be effected now rather than waiting for the future platting of the adjacent land, the value of that which will be obtained is equal or greater than the value of that which is abandoned …”
The resolution also stated that the abandoned easement, which was 40 feet wide, was not wide enough to build the access road.
The City of Port Aransas plans to build a new beach access road on an easement 165 feet south of the southern property border of Cinnamon Shore North. The original location for the road was directly adjacent to the border of the subdivision. Staff illustration by Keith Petrus
Sea Oats Group, the developer of Cinnamon Shore, is dedicating the new right-of-way easement to the city. The group owns the property where the new easement will be.
City Manager David Parsons hopes to have a contract signed with Sea Oats for the deal within a month.
The city has referred to the planned road both as Beach Access Road 1B and Beach Access Road B.
After a contract is signed, the next step is for the city to start the dune permitting process for the proposed road. Obtaining a dune permit will take about three months, Parsons said.
Then, the city will finalize the design of the road, which could take about another three months. The design will determine how much the project would cost. Next, the project could be put out for bid for construction in November or December with a possible construction start date early next year, Parsons said.
The city has had plans to build the road for a long time. In February 2022, the council issued $900,000 in certificate-of-obligation bonds to fund construction.
The new easement will be 60 feet wide and expand to a width of 80 feet when it reaches the dunes. More space is needed to develop the road through the dunes, Parsons said.
The road will either have a 5-foot-wide sidewalk on each side or a single 8-foot-wide hike-and-bike trail, Parsons said.
The street is planned to be a two-lane road that expands to three lanes where the street meets the highway with a center-left-turn lane, a right-turn lane and a lane for motorists coming onto the road. The two lanes would be divided by a center median. A stoplight also is planned for the intersection of the road and the highway.
The city plans to install beach showers on the beach where the road entry will be. All other city beach access roads have beach showers, Parsons said. The city will also add more portable restrooms down the beach to the new road.
The beaches are getting more and more crowded, which is one of the many reasons the new road is needed, Parsons said. There is a stretch of 7.3 miles between Beach Access Road 1 and Beach Access Road 2 that doesn’t have an access point to the beach from the highway.
“It’s just better to just be able to have that extra access so that people can come off the highway and just be right there,” Parsons said.
Port Aransas city officials have said that building a new access road on the southern end of town would allow emergency vehicles such as police cars and ambulances to get to the scenes of southern beach emergencies more quickly.
Supporters have said that it also would better serve the folks who live nearer the southern Port Aransas city limits, an area that’s growing. It would provide better access for tourists as well.
In the past, some Cinnamon Shore property owners opposed construction of the road directly adjacent to the subdivision, which is where the old easement was, saying it would lower their property values and put traffic too close to their houses.
The old location for the road “was in a place where it was going to be really disruptive to some homeowners that have been there for a long time,” said Jeff Lamkin, CEO of the Sea Oats Group.
The city negotiated for about a year and a half with Sea Oats regarding the location of the planned road.
“We were able to sit down, and it was hard to figure out the right, fair situation. But this is really a smart decision,” Lamkin said. “We did a bunch of studies and found a good place to make it work that I think meets everybody’s needs. And I think it will be a great addition to the city.”
Three different locations were considered for the road, Parsons said.
“About four months ago, (Lamkin) came up with the idea of shifting it down 165 feet,” he said. “And that’s what we’ve agreed on.”
Cinnamon Shore developers plan to build roads that would connect Cinnamon Shore North to the future access road.
Sea Oats also has plans to build a subdivision with a marina on the bay side of the highway. The beach access road will “provide access from the bay properties on that whole side of the island to get safely across 361 at a stoplight,” Lamkin said.
Contact Kathryn Cargo at reporter@portasouthjetty.com.
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