Island City Comes Back Stronger After Harvey

PORT ARANSAS, TX—Mustang Island is a barrier island on the Texas Gulf Coast. The island is 18 miles long, stretching from Corpus Christi north to Port Aransas, oriented northeast southwest, with the Gulf of Mexico on the east and south, and Corpus Christi Bay on the north and west. Mustang Island State Park encompasses the southern third of the island, including 3,955 acres and 5 miles of beach. The island’s southern end is connected by State Highway 361 to Padre Island and via the JFK Causeway to the mainland.

At the northern tip of Mustang Island, Port Aransas is on a string of barrier sand reefs that stretch from Galveston to Mexico. Transportation from the mainland to the northern end of the island is provided by the TxDOT ferry system. Port Aransas is served by five 20-car ferries and three 28-car ferries that bring more than 1 million vehicles to the island each year. A new ferry headquarters building was completed in March 2015, and on the horizon are ferry-stacking lanes in the area of Port Street that will change the approaches coming to and leaving Port Aransas.

Port Aransas is on land where Karankawa Indians once roamed and cattle grazed, and it evolved into an isolated camp town where only fishermen came to reap the bounty of the fishing waters. Farley boats would later be built here for those who fished for tarpon in those early days. In fact, the little village was once known as Tarpon, TX.

One of the earliest structures on the island was the original Tarpon Inn, built in 1886. It was destroyed by fire in 1900, but it was soon rebuilt using lumber salvaged from the first inn. The island’s location at the edge of the Gulf has been tested by storms often for centuries, and hurricanes in 1916 and 1919 did much damage to Port Aransas. However, island residents rebuilt the community including the venerable Tarpon Inn after each storm, up to and including Hurricane Celia in 1970.

In the mid-1920s, people who heard of the bountiful fishing destination began asking for automobile access to the island. A car-train system was developed to bring cars on a flatbed railroad car from Aransas Pass to Harbor Island, and from there to Port Aransas via ferry.

Although the tarpon population dwindled drastically in the mid-1900s, the popularity of sport fishing continued to grow in the 1960s. There are now fishing tournaments targeting species other than tarpon nearly every weekend during the summer and a few scattered in the fall.

Condominium development began in 1965 with the completion of Sea Isle Village, and condo business boomed through the 1970s and early 1980s. Tourism reached a peak in the 1970s and into the 1980s with summer holidays, weekends and the annual spring pilgrimage of thousands of students boosting the island’s vacationer tally. In addition, the annual migration of winter Texans from northern states has brought yet another season of tourism to the island.

The oil bust of the mid- to latter-1980s put a temporary cap on the development of the tourism industry in Port Aransas. This resulted in much of the green space and pedestrian-friendly terrain that is present today. The Texas economy began a rebound in the 1990s, although the pace was tempered by a recent downturn in the oil industry.

Today, Port Aransas bears little resemblance to the island village that was punctuated primarily by sand dunes and sea oats. The Port Aransas of the 21st century features multi-story condominiums, five national-brand hotels as well as several independent motels, numerous restaurants and retail shops, canal-front subdivisions, a network of paved streets and sidewalks, an airport and a golf course. Roughly 50% of the lodging is comprised of vacation homes, 22% is hotels and 21% are traditional condos, according to the Port Aransas Chamber of Commerce and Tourist Bureau. It is a $500 million economy that is set to triple after additional planned condos are built. And, plans are in the works to build a convention center, entertainment destination and a 2,000-seat sports complex, thanks to a new city council that favors smart growth, GlobeSt.com learns. Port Aransas’ population after the 2010 census was 3,480 full-time residents.

Despite the smart/pro-growth city council, the Port Aransas Nature preserve that was established in 2004 protects approximately 1,300 acres or one-third of the island. Protected dune systems and wetlands surround the perimeter of the island. Because much of the island is preserved, the wetlands on the Bay side have to go through permitting by the Texas General Land office. The dune system is also protected with no building permitted on any of the dunes on the island.

Eco-tourism including bird watching, also began drawing greater interest into the 21st Century, and Port Aransas in the late 1990s held the Celebration of Whooping Cranes and Other Birds, now called the Whooping Crane Festival, as an annual event drawing birders from across the nation. The city has placed emphasis on its birding centers, particularly the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center on Ross Avenue, and the Joan and Scott Holt Paradise Pond Birding Center off of Cut-Off Road.

“There are three beach destinations in Texas: Galveston, Padre and Mustang Island but Mustang provides the closest beach to San Antonio and Austin. It’s drivable from many parts of Texas and it has a mom and pop feel,” Keith McMullin, broker with Mustang Island Ventures, tells GlobeSt.com. “The challenge for city leaders is to manage growth. We don’t want to have a city without a soul.”

He observed that Ike (which hit Galveston) and Dolly (which hit Padre), both helped demand for Mustang Island beginning in 2005, given the region is no stranger to hurricanes. Then, in a cruel twist of fate, Port Aransas fell victim to category 4 Harvey on August 25 and 26, 2017.

While the city didn’t suffer as much from the usual effects of a hurricane, namely wind, it did face a wall of water that circled around the bayside of the island. High- and low-rise condominiums, beach vacation houses, brand-name hotels, an Arnold Palmer signature golf course, and hundreds of new or relatively new homes all suffered the storm’s fury.

Some were harder hit, some showed very little damage and some were completely destroyed. Approximately 1/3 of the hotels, 15% of the vacation homes and 90% of the condos were initially closed due to Harvey, according to the Port Aransas Chamber of Commerce and Tourist Bureau.

Because of the improved building codes put into place in 2010, buildings constructed after that time held up fairly well. However, anything above two stories was targeted by Harvey and now sit in a skinned state awaiting rebuilding.

Many of those larger condominiums may not be open until 2019 or even 2020, but Jeffrey Hentz, president and chief executive officer of the Port Aransas Chamber of Commerce and Tourist Bureau, vows they’ll be back. Most of the smaller lodging facilities and businesses have re-opened or are scheduled to reopen.

“We will be looking at $250 to $300 million in gross revenues just from lodging alone this year,” Hentz tells GlobeSt.com. “The golf cart industry is $40 to $50 million alone.”

The educational system is largely back in operation, although the University of Texas Marine Science Institute is still working to rebuild. Port Aransas ISD students in the elementary and high schools, after six weeks in classrooms off the island and then a stint in portable buildings, returned to their buildings earlier this year. Middle school students returned to a restored building in August.

But there are silver linings: many who build from scratch or remodel will find buildings vastly improved from the pre-Harvey days. And, the New Day-Port A foundation headed by Hentz’s team is shepherding donations to help those in need. As of this fall, the town has shown remarkable signs of recovery and resilience.