City creating community-focused advisory committee to discuss Inner Harbor Desal Plant<\/a><\/p>\nThe Texas Water Development Board has unanimously approved the city\u2019s request to delay the next installment of its SWIFT loan by one year. The move pushes the city\u2019s next planned borrowing of roughly $210 million from late 2025 to late 2026.<\/p>\n
City Manager Peter Zanoni says the delay allows the city to line up financing with key decisions still ahead on the future of the desalination project, which is now entering a second design phase after the city parted ways with its original contractor.<\/p>\n
Zanoni says the extension locks in some of the lowest interest rates available in Texas for water infrastructure projects. Rates that could save local water customers more than $100 million over the life of the loan.<\/p>\n
The SWIFT program, run by the Texas Water Development Board, is highly competitive. City officials say Corpus Christi beat out dozens of other projects statewide to qualify for up to $756 million in low-interest financing for the Inner Harbor facility.<\/p>\n
Councilman Mark Scott says the state could have required the city to immediately begin paying back the $210 million it has already borrowed. But, instead agreed to give Corpus Christi more time to evaluate its options.<\/p>\n
That time will be used to review a proposal from Acciona, an international firm that builds desalination plants around the world. The company is expected to return early next year with a revised cost estimate and design approach.<\/p>\n
Scott says if the city abandons the project altogether, Corpus Christi ratepayers alone would be responsible for repaying the borrowed funds. But if the city moves forward with a regional water supply project, those costs could be shared with neighboring communities.<\/p>\n
State officials stress the delay does not increase the total loan amount, it only extends the timeline. City council is expected to revisit the project in the coming months once updated cost figures are available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 Corpus Christi gets one-year delay on massive desalination loan, saving ratepayers millions Corpus Christi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-92157","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\/92157","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=92157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}