Packery Channel in Corpus Christi is set for major upgrades after City Council applied for a grant to renovate boat ramps and built a restroom facility.<\/p>\n
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 Big upgrades would be coming to Packery Channel after the Corpus Christi City Council voted to move forward with submitting a grant application through the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.<\/p>\n
One after another, boats are launched at Packery Island on a regular basis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Corpus Christi city council member for District 4 Kaylynn Paxson said the boat ramp area hasn’t been touched since 2006.<\/p>\n
“This is a rather large and highly utilized boat ramp for this region and so being able to put some repairs into that, add some enhancements, bring it a lot more modern, that really does improve the experience for everybody using this,” Paxson said.<\/p>\n
Director of Corpus Christi Parks and Recreation Department Robert Dodd said this is a much needed renovation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We’re looking at designing two boat access ramps as well as a new restroom facilities. We have porta potties out there now, but we want to make it again a little bit more convenient for our boaters and fishermen out there,” Dodd said.<\/p>\n
Nancy and Dan McGraw said they enjoy fishing on packery channel and know first-hand what’s it’s like to launch boats.<\/p>\n
“One time I forgot to put the plug in, so it’s filling up with the water and she runs the back pretty soon. I thought we’re going to tip, and but we finally got some adventures on our boat,” McGraw said.<\/p>\n
They say this area is one of their favorites and are looking forward to the renovations<\/p>\n
“Yes, that’s very nice. Any improvements made, it’ll just get more visitors and more people that want to fish here,” McGraw said.<\/p>\n
Paxson said the city has applied for a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department grant, which would cover most of the funding for the project.<\/p>\n
“So, this is a matching grant, and what that is is like 75% of this project would be covered under the grant, and that keeps our contribution very low, and that just helps us with being able to stretch our funding locally into not only doing this kind of a project but doing other projects that would qualify under this funding, it just maximizes our dollar,” Paxson said.<\/p>\n
But most importantly, the upgrades to the boat ramp could save lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“So, having quick access to water rescues, very important. This area we see so many people out on the beaches and, and so having apparatuses like this that allow our first responders to get there very quickly is essential,” Paxson said.<\/p>\n
Dodd said the grant is expected to be awarded in September, at which point the department will move on to planning and design.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Packery Channel in Corpus Christi is set for major upgrades after City Council applied for a grant to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-143378","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}