Posted on March 18, 2026
By Chris Gray
Hundreds of millions of dollars in potential additional development on Pelican Island is prompting Galveston officials to increase their efforts to find an alternative to the aging Seawolf Parkway bridge, which the Texas Department of Transportation currently estimates will cost more than $350 million and require nearly a decade to complete.
Last Tuesday, the Galveston Wharves Board of Trustees voted unanimously to authorize Port Director and CEO Rodger Rees to ask the Assistant Secretary of the Army to approve a feasibility study for a rail-supporting land bridge under the Water Resources Development Act of 2024. (Very little happens in Galveston’s harbor without the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ say-so.)
The port owns 357 acres on Pelican Island, much of it undeveloped. Much of it remains undeveloped because, at least in part, TxDOT’s two-lane, track-free Seawolf Parkway bridge is the only land route on or off the island. In his latest column for the port’s website, Rees said the port’s recently adopted 20-year master plan includes developing 96 acres on the waterfront into a cargo-handling yard that would offer nearly 2,600 linear feet of berth space.
With Canadian shipbuilding firm Davie Defense’s recent acquisition of the Gulf Copper shipyard and a contract to build icebreaker ships for the U.S. Coast Guard, the port also has the opportunity to double the land it owns for shipbuilding and repair, Rees added. With the master plan projecting $344 million in total investment in the port from various funding sources, the Seawolf Parkway bridge is increasingly looking like a liability.
“Development has been and will continue to be constrained until we address the need for bridge and rail connectivity, as well as essential utility and transportation infrastructure on the island,” Rees wrote.
