Padre Island Corpus Christi Development using GIG talent

[James Gray]

I have started working on a small development on Padre Island in Corpus Christi. I am going to use GIG resources to see how it can compare on cost vs traditional local talent. First thing I should say is I started with a talented local engineering group for the Planned Unit Development (PUD). The primary engineer had worked for the city and was now working for the larger firm. I thought using someone familiar with the zoning and development codes would be a plus. It turned out that he was biased towards the standard building codes and did not understand there were different standards for the "Island Overlay" zoning. As a result, it delayed the project a few months because he kept using the "standard" zoning rules, while the zoning in this area was much more towards high density and I had to keep showing him. I realize now I should have hired someone less familiar with the area, (a GIG engineer) since they would have used the proper setbacks and parking allowances per the Development Code for the vacation area and would not have cared about the normal zoning.

I did hire a remote engineer to do the soils report. The average bids I received locally was around $4K. I thought that was a bit steep for an area that was basically a sand bar with plenty of nearby developments. I located engineer on internet who drove from Houston and did the soil borings for under $900. I think this is when I realized the local engineers where really asking a premium and started down the GIG engineering path.