Contractors Pouring Foundations for Northpark Bridge

3/19/26 – The first all-weather evacuation route from Kingwood is getting closer to completion as the Northpark Bridge becomes reality.

Contractors hustled everywhere today:

Installing new streetlights and final drainage
Excavating entry ponds
Finishing work on Loop 494
Placing rebar
Pouring concrete
Building piers for the Northpark bridge over the UPRR and Loop 494
Laying foundations for ramps that will lead up to the bridge.

The pictures below tell the story. Let’s start with the biggest remaining piece of the Northpark Project jigsaw puzzle: the bridge.

Beginnings of a Bridge

I took all the pictures below today between 1 PM and 2 PM. Near Public Storage the first six piers for the bridge were in the ground. You could see foundations for the wing walls/abutments that will lead up to the bridge.

Those two concrete strips just inside the work area are leveling pads for the retaining walls that will form the ramp for the lead up to the bridge. Also note the eight finished piers in the foreground.

Truckers delivered the wall panels (not shown) to the site as I left. The area between the two leveling pads will be filled with compacted soil.

According to Ralph De Leon, the project manager for the Lake Houston Redevelopment Authority/TIRZ 10, Harper Brothers will connect the insides of the wall panels to metal straps approximately 20 feet long and embed the straps in the compacted soil.

*More rebar tubes await as more holes are drilled for more piers. See below. See line of piers across bottom of frame.*

Contractors drilled another hole (right) as I watched.

*Equipment on right drills holes then pumps slurry into them. The crane on the left lifts and places the rebar cages into the holes.*

*Slurry being pumped into the hole from the yellow container in the background.*

Note the slurry in the hole just drilled. It keeps the sides from collapsing until they pour concrete. They will pump concrete to the bottom of the hole. Because of its density, it will displace the temporary slurry, which they then siphon off.

*Contractors digging trench for another leveling wall that will go under the ramp leading to the bridge. The sand will stabilize the concrete.*

Loop 494 Construction Virtually Complete

Loop 494 has reached its full width. It still needs striping tie-ins in a couple places to Northpark traffic. That will likely happen when UPRR installs crossing gates and contractors finish the rail crossings on Northpark.

*The final cross section of 494. TXDoT will repeat this same cross section as 494 expansion moves northward. It’s the same cross section they built at Kingwood Drive.*

UPRR Crossings

UPRR decided to install controller cabinets for its crossing signals on both sides of Northpark, not just the south.

*Electronics are already installed and energized. UPRR just needs to install new crossing arms and hook them up.*

After the new crossing arms become functional, contractors can finish paving the surface turn lanes that will go on either side of the bridge (where traffic is currently routed, through the center of the photo above). Within months, we should begin to see a bridge taking shape where those old lanes are now.

Eastern End of Project Virtually Complete

Farther east, the roadbed looks virtually complete with the exception of some finishing touches, such as striping, traffic signals, and filling in the median between the center curbs.