Tyler ISD is a significant force in East Texas with two class 5-A high schools and dozens of other campuses spread across Smith County along with its Rose Stadium site. Management of such a large group of sites and especially paving of the parking lots can be pretty overwhelming at times.

The Brannon Corporation has been selected to do most of the on-campus paving and drainage improvements for the last several years after the district decided some uniformity between bidding procedures, specifications and designs was necessary. As a result, we were awarded the 2003 Parking Improvement Program which aimed at repairing and extending the life of five different campuses.

This project which will run over $225,000 had to be completed during the brief summer recess so as not to interfere with classes come August which means that bids had to procured and contracts signed before school was even out in early June.

Principal engineer, Rea Boudreaux, along with engineer-in-training Scott Mitchell, were in charge of the project all the way from inception through design, bidding, and construction. Their aim was to improve traffic flow by laying out new parking configurations while at the same time overlaying and repairing base to preserve the parking lots. Hot mix asphaltic concrete was used for the surfacing.

Contractor, selected through competitive bidding, was Bella Vista Construction.

Tyler ISD Facilities Manager for all campuses within the district is Tim Loper. Tim can be reached for comment at lopert@tyler.sprnet.org.