Tyler addresses downtown culvert collapse, water plant emergency and new senior housing plans

Published 5:40 am Thursday, February 12, 2026

The City of Tyler will be addressing structural stormwater damage to a building and underground drainage pipe in the downtown Elm Street area through hiring specialized engineering firms, approved an emergency cost to replace a critical motor at the Lake Palestine Water Plant and endorsed a new housing project for seniors in Tyler during Wednesday’s meeting.

Stormwater damage 

The council approved two contracts to assess the extent of damage and began to plan repairs on an underground stormwater box culvert that runs along Elm Street in the downtown area between Broadway Avenue and Spring Avenue after it was found collapsed on Nov. 10, 2025. The two contacts will be a part of the Elm Street Culvert Collapse Remediation Project.

“We did find a partial collapse on that covert and we immediately moved with staff and a contractor to shore that up and provide protection for that covert, but we do need a permanent solution,” said Cameron Williams, Tyler’s traffic engineer. “Also, there was a portion of an existing building that had a column and part of its slab undermined from erosion because of that collapse in the water and the drainage.”

The stormwater box culvert is estimated to be around 90 to 100 years old and also presents other problem areas, besides the collapsed section, that need to be repaired. The building was owned by the Bethel Bible Church.

The council approved a $148,805 contract with IMEG Consultants Corp, in the first contract, for the design and construction phase services for the building located at 111 and 115 East Elm Street. The company will identify and develop repairs to fix undermined footing, a method for filling the sub-slab void spaces and document the build’s pre-construction.

“IMEG Consulting, they are a structural engineering firm, so they’ll be able to go in and evaluate this building, look at the elevations of the building and then be able to see how it’s constructed and know what are the impacts of that specific column and with that washout that happened, they will make sure we are focusing specifically on the damage that was associated with the drainage structure,” Williams said.

The second contract was a $141, 500 contract with HDR  for the engineering assessment services.

“We are going to look at that entire drainage structure, so how much water is coming through here? Do we need to upsize? And that gives us direction on how we either repair, rebuild or potentially reroute,” Williams said. “We want to look at what’s the most cost effective solution for the city to move forward and provide the drainage that we need in the downtown area.”

The project will have two different timelines. Initially, the city will take four weeks to assess the damage and then around six months to identify drainage needs and alternatives. The Elm Street Culvert Collapse Remediation Project is funded by the Half Cent Sales Tax Funds and is separate from the Tyler Water Utilities Consent Decree also occurring on Elm Street.

“There’s just a lot happening downtown, it’s a lot of older structure and so that’s where we’re trying to address it as best we can,” Williams said. “We’ve continued to have conversations with those property owners to make sure they’re aware and they’re part of the solution.”

Emergency water plant motor 

The city approved an emergency $350,175 cost that Tyler Water Utilities had to pay to replace a Toshiba Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) on a pump at the Lake Palestine Water Plant when it broke.

“We have four high service pumps and those high service pumps take the treated water from the plant and pump it out into the distribution system into the different water towers,” said Kate Dietz, director of utilities for the City of Tyler. “When the variable frequency drive went down, which is a speed control for the motor on the pump, it made it so that the pump was inoperable.”

Dietz said the city had to replace the pump as soon as possible because it would decrease Tyler’s ability to provide pressure and pump out to the distribution system.

“When we have failures we do our best so that our citizens and our customers don’t notice it,” Dietz said. “We replaced it and now we have full capacity back at the pump station.”

Dietz said also at Lake Palestine filters 2, 5 and 8 are not operating well currently.

“We had a couple of blowouts on a couple of filters and we are currently working through with our engineering firm and the contractor to come in and get those parts ordered so that those filter underdrains can be replaced,” Dietz said. “When we get closer to spring we are trying to get these filters back online just as soon as we possibly can and we’ll be very diligent in taking one down at a time after we replace the two emergency repair ones.”

While work on filers continues, the replaced VFD has worked smoothly, Dietz said.

Senior housing 

The council also approved to support the Tyler Senior Village housing project and give the project $500 to help it win state funding.

The Tyler Senior Village, located at 712 North Broadway Avenue on the north side of downtown Tyler, will be applying for Housing Tax Credits from the state and to win credits the developer needs to prove the local city government supports the project at its location. Tyler agreed to financially support the village because state tax credit programs often give priority to applications where the city provides a local contribution, helping it stand higher in the state’s ranking system.

“The proposal is to convert the existing church into 48 to 52 senior living units,” said Kyle Kingma, planning director for Tyler. “Each year, through a program administered by the state, each project receives points for various topics and one of those is local support so the city council makes a resolution of support for their project and that helps them with their ultimate outcome.”

The tax credit program is a way to incentivize private development and private money to develop affordable housing across the state. Kingma said the project will help support the other options for senior housing in the area.

“In our city plan we do have a policy or a goal to provide housing for all stages of the lifecycle and options throughout the community for affordable housing for seniors,” Kingma said.

Other items  

The council also unanimously approved the following items and routine proceedings during the meeting:

• Ordinance amending the Fiscal Year 2025-2026 Budget for the East Maple Estates contract (TIRZ 3) and consulting fees to perform a Wastershed Timing Assessment (Development Services).

To watch any of the city council meetings, visit the city’s website at cityoftyler.org, YouTube or Facebook page. The Tyler City Council meetings are held at 9 a.m. on the second and fourth Wednesday monthly on the second floor of City Hall, located at 212 N. Bonner Ave. in downtown Tyler.