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Design project highlights need for North Beach substation

Posted at 6:06 PM, May 06, 2020
and last updated 2020-05-06 22:10:46-04

CORPUS CHRISTI, Tex. — Along with drainage, better access to emergency services is an important issue for North Beach residents, which is why they say the area needs a police and fire substation.

Right now first responders have to cross the Harbor Bridge to get to North Beach. Residents call that problematic.

“The Harbor Bridge is what connects us to Corpus Christi, and if anything happens on the Harbor Bridge, like a big wreck, police and fire cannot reach us,” said Carrie Robertson-Meyer.

Residents, like Meyer, don’t expect things to get much better with the new Harbor Bridge.

“The new Harbor Bridge will put us even farther from our current fire station and farther from the police station,” said Meyer.

With those concerns in mind, members of the North Beach Task Force worked with second-year Del Mar College architecture students to design a potential substation. These two-student teams made their pitches to Police Chief Mike Markle and Fire Chief Robert Rocha Wednesday. Both came away impressed.

“I thought the design was great, it was forward thinking, it had in mind a full-service station, should that ever come to fruition,” said Markle.

Rocha recognizes the need for a North Beach fire station.

“Hopefully someday it will be reality,” said Rocha. “All of our residents deserve e to have top quality public safety response from our firefighters and police officers.”

Rocha’s sentiment is shared by North Beach property tax payers.

“They pay police and fire, and we’re all paying a lot of taxes over here,” said Meyer. “The property values are going up.”

Both Chief Rocha and Chief Markle say they plan to use some of the students designs if a substation is built there.

Two other Del Mar students also designed an amphitheater, which is also part of the development project.