It’s been nearly a year since officials in Cameron County, in the Rio Grande Valley, launched a massive $12 million overhaul of the most popular beach access on South Padre Island.
Last October, county officials gathered at Isla Blanca Park, at the southernmost tip of the island, to break ground on a project to expand and modernize the RV campgrounds at the center of the county’s coastal park. But as the yearlong project nears the 12-month mark, construction continues, and hundreds of camping spots remain unavailable just as the busy Winter Texan season is set to begin.
“It’s still a mess. They’re going slow as hell,” South Padre Island resident Tommy Saenz told MySA this week.
The longtime local, who goes by “Tiki Tommy” on social media, is known for trekking to the park at dawn nearly every day to deliver “surf reports” — videos that update locals and tourists alike on current surf and weather conditions.
Aside from a wide stretch of powder-soft sand and sparkling turquoise waters, visitors will find a range of amenities at the park, including a long line of granite jetties popular with anglers, two expansive public pavilions connected by a seaside boardwalk, ample parking, an indoor/outdoor event venue known as the Cameron County Amphitheater, boat ramps, bait and snack concessions, and beach gear rentals. In recent years, Isla Blanca Park has also earned a reputation for offering the best unfettered views of SpaceX rocket launches from nearby Starbase.
At the center of Isla Blanca lies a massive campground with more than 600 full-hookup RV campsites and spaces for more primitive tent camping. Visitors can reserve a campsite for anywhere from a single day to several months, and guests typically flood online reservation systems as soon as the county opens them ahead of the busy summer and winter seasons.
But the sites have been unavailable for the past year while crews upgrade the campground’s electrical, water and sewer infrastructure. The project is also expected to create a new row of RV campsites after two streets — Dodson and Emerald — are realigned to improve traffic flow. It’s all part of a multiyear, multimillion-dollar effort to continue attracting visitors to the beach access, which Cameron County Parks Director Joe Vega has called “the crown jewel of the Texas Gulf Coast.”
But when MySA reached out to Vega earlier this week for comment on the delay of the $12 million overhaul, the parks director deferred questions to Cameron County Engineer Jeff Worsham, who is leading the project. However, neither Worsham nor Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. responded to messages from MySA by the time of publication.
Meanwhile, on social media, visitors have been wondering for months when the RV park portion of Isla Blanca will finally reopen.
“How much progress has been made on the improvements @ Isla Blanca RV Park? Any word on (a) completion date?” one person asked in late June on a Facebook community page called South Padre Island Concierge, where tourists often look to locals for answers.
“Have they even started?” one reply asked.