The City of Cleveland is taking steps to improve its infrastructure through a combination of grants and low-interest loans, setting the stage for significant upgrades to its water, sewer and drainage systems.
City Manager Scott Swigert explained that the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) is offering Cleveland two major loan opportunities, with large portions of these loans forgivable, effectively functioning as grants.
“One of the loans is 90 percent forgivable, and the other is 70 percent forgivable,” said Swigert. “All we have to do is borrow the funding for our portion.”
These loans are designed to address the city’s clean water needs, including sewer improvements. Swigert emphasized that the entire city would benefit from the projects being planned under this initiative.
“We have submitted projects for both the water and sewer systems,” he said. “There is an initial application that you apply for and get approval. The City of Cleveland was invited to apply. That’s why we are going out for RFQs now to bring on an engineer and grant administrator. We were invited to do the full application, which means you are pretty much approved to go out for the loans. The engineer and administrator will be brought on board, and we will be able to run the numbers better for those projects.”
Once the full application is submitted and approved, the city will begin the design and construction phases of the $30 million project, which is split evenly between water and sewer improvements. Swigert explained that these projects would be phased over several years, with the goal of completing all work within three to five years.
“We will be replacing a lot of water and sewer lines,” Swigert said. “We have old lines that are 2 to 4-inch lines that are main lines. We are going to replace them with a minimum 6-inch line. That will give us better fire protection throughout the city.”
Enhanced fire protection could also improve Cleveland’s ISO rating, potentially lowering property insurance rates for residents.
In addition to the TWDB loans, Cleveland is pursuing a $750,000 Texas Community Development Grant through the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA). The city has already awarded grant administration to GrantWorks and plans to coordinate this funding with the TWDB loans to maximize the impact on the city’s water and sewer systems.
“We have old, old lines out there. Some of these were the original lines that were installed in the city years ago,” Swigert noted. “I believe we have some clay lines that are still here.”
On top of these efforts, Cleveland has secured a $1 million grant from the Texas General Land Office (GLO) as part of the 2019 GLO Disaster Fund. This funding will be used to improve drainage in the Tanglewood Subdivision on the northwest side of the city.
“We finalized our contract with Strand Engineering for the drainage project,” Swigert said. “I am assuming that will be 6 to 9 months for design, and I think it’s another year out before people actually get to see the work happening.”
Swigert expressed pride in the city’s accomplishments and the hard work that has gone into securing these funds.
“Getting all this grant funding is a huge victory for the City of Cleveland. This is going to be huge for our businesses, residents, and future growth,” he said. “We haven’t had this before. Just the water and fire protection is a huge win. We have a lot of stuff going on right now. It’s been a lot of work getting to this point. We have been working hard for a long time. I am proud of our staff.”