Bellaire said in May the south basin would be finished by early 2027. In September, that is when construction starts.

At its May 12 groundbreaking, Bellaire said the south detention basin would be complete by the first quarter of 2027. In September the city said design finishes at the end of 2026 and construction starts in early 2027. The money for the $110 million project is accounted for. The calendar moved about a year.

Why it matters

This is the Cypress Ditch watershed, the drainage that failed Bellaire in Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 and again in Hurricane Harvey in 2017, when nearly 2,000 Bellaire homes were damaged.

The south basin is the first of three phases. Every month it slips moves the north basin and the channel work behind it, and those are the pieces that carry water out to Brays Bayou.

By the numbers

$54,000,000, the Texas Water Development Board grant from the General Revenue Fund, committed to Bellaire by board resolution on January 22, 2026.
$15 million from the Harris County Flood Control District, contributed in March 2026, plus a drainage detention easement the City Council approved August 3, 2026.
$40 million from Proposition A, the drainage bonds Bellaire voters approved 6,395 to 3,093 on November 5, 2024.
$109 million of the stated $110 million total is therefore named and sourced. This project’s problem is not the funding.
$113 million. The state’s own January resolution puts the total project cost at “approximately $113 million,” about $3 million above the figure the city uses.
$6.46 million, what Bellaire paid Houston for the 13-acre Beechnut Tract the south basin sits on.
60 percent, the increase in Cypress Ditch stormwater capacity the city says all three phases will deliver, from South Rice Avenue to Brays Bayou.
Q3 2028 and Q4 2029, the completion targets stated in May for the north basin and the channel work.

What the coverage buried

Community Impact has covered this project at every step, and the September 14 update is accurate about what is happening on the site right now. Demolition is done, debris removal and final clearing are underway, and privacy screening went up next to Congregation Beth Yeshurun.

What the story does not do is put the new schedule next to the old one. Four months earlier, the same outlet reported the city’s own target of a completed south basin by the first quarter of 2027. The September story reports construction beginning then and carries no cost figure at all.

Read only the latest story and the project is moving. Open both and the first phase has moved roughly a year, inside four months, with no stated reason.

The other side

Three things cut the city’s way, and they are not small.

Every funding milestone landed when Bellaire said it would: the state grant in January, the county’s $15 million in March, the easement in August. That is not the usual record on flood projects in this county.

Clearing a 13-acre site with a congregation next door is real work, and site conditions are where schedules go. And a date given at a groundbreaking is a target, not a contract.

The answer is that a target is still the only thing residents can plan around, and the city published it. If it was never firm, the city is the one that should say so, and say what the new date is. Harris County’s own flood bond program is the reason people in this watershed read schedules closely.

What to watch

Whether Bellaire posts a revised phase 1 schedule before construction bids go out.
Design completion, which the city now puts at the end of 2026.
Drawdowns against the $54 million the city expects to hold in a TWDB escrow account.
The Meyergrove Phase 2 basin, 8.1 acre-feet, and the $439,225 construction contract Harris County Commissioners Court awarded July 30.

Bottom line

Bellaire assembled $109 million of a $110 million flood project on schedule, which is the hard part and it got done. The first basin is now about a year behind the date the city gave at its own groundbreaking. Nobody has published a revised date, and the two phases behind it still carry the old ones.

Sources

Editorial