"Approve plans and specifications and authorize advertisement of bids." That line was on the Upper Kirby Redevelopment Authority's agenda for West Alabama Street when its board met at 8 a.m. on Wednesday, September 16, 2026. The same wording appeared on the June 24 agenda, on the February 18 agenda, and on two agendas from fall 2025.
East of Shepherd, the Montrose segment of the same street now has a published schedule. Construction is set to begin in early 2027 and run about two years. As of early October 2026, the stretch that runs through Upper Kirby, past St. John's School and toward Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, has the larger budget and the more ambitious plan. It still has no published construction start date, and its bid authorization was still listed as a proposed action in September.
West Alabama will be rebuilt by different tax increment zones working on different timelines. The street that comes out the other side will change at Shepherd Drive.
The Upper Kirby half buries its power lines
The Upper Kirby project, known in district records as T-1920, covers 1.17 miles of West Alabama from Buffalo Speedway to Shepherd Drive. The current design page lists a complete road surface replacement that keeps the existing lane configuration. It also lists major drainage work, replacement of aging water and sanitary lines, new traffic signals, roadway lighting, wider sidewalks, decorative lighting, landscaping and irrigation. It moves overhead electrical and telecommunications lines into underground duct banks. Once the work is done, the Upper Kirby Management District says its landscape crews will maintain the plantings and irrigation every week. District crews will also repair sidewalks, crosswalks, pedestrian lighting and street furniture as needed.
The district's project StoryMap was last updated July 3, 2025. It documents the problems the rebuild is meant to fix: standing water, sidewalks that are narrow or missing in places, and ponding between Greenbriar and Shepherd. The project homepage says the updated plan "reflects changes aligned with the Mayor's priorities around vehicular mobility." At an April 2025 board meeting, projects director Lee Cisneros explained how the plans had been adjusted to meet City requirements for lane and sidewalk width.
The budget is large. The authority's draft FY2026 capital plan sets aside $47.4 million in planned appropriations for West Alabama Reconstruction. The previous year's plan showed $45.85 million for FY25 through FY29.
The Montrose half keeps its overhead lines
East of Shepherd, the Montrose Redevelopment Authority (TIRZ 27) is rebuilding about 1.6 miles from Shepherd to Spur 527. That plan also includes a lot of work. Large rectangular boxes under the street will provide more than 5 acre-feet of stormwater detention. Travel lanes will be narrowed from 12 feet to 11, and sidewalks widened to 6 feet. CN Koehl Urban Forestry is designing the tree protection plans.
The power lines are where the two halves split. In 2025, the Montrose TIRZ attorney said the zone has no authority to pay for burying overhead lines because it can only carry out projects the City authorizes. She noted that some other areas have paid for burial through management districts, and Montrose has no active management district. Upper Kirby has a management district, and its plan moves the lines underground. Drivers heading east on West Alabama should see the overhead wires return once they cross Shepherd.
| Upper Kirby segment | Montrose segment | |
|---|---|---|
| Limits | Buffalo Speedway to Shepherd, 1.17 miles | Shepherd to Spur 527, about 1.6 miles |
| Lead agency | Upper Kirby Redevelopment Authority (TIRZ 19) | Montrose Redevelopment Authority (TIRZ 27) |
| Money | $47.4M in planned appropriations, draft FY2026 capital plan | $30M current construction cost, August 2026 |
| Overhead lines | Relocated to underground duct banks | Stay overhead |
| Lanes | Existing configuration preserved | 11-foot lanes with center turn lane |
| Construction start | No published start date; bid authorization on the September 16, 2026 agenda | Early 2027, about two years |
The two dollar figures measure different things. Upper Kirby's is a multiyear appropriation line in a draft capital plan. Montrose's is a construction cost estimate. Montrose's estimate has also gone up, from the $28.5 million reported in 2025 to $30 million in the August 2026 presentation.
Why Montrose has a date and Upper Kirby does not
Montrose has a firm date because it has published one. Its design phase began in January 2026, once the City executed the design-scope contract. At its August 3, 2026 virtual open house, the authority laid out design through late 2026, construction beginning in early 2027 and completion in early 2029, with a note that the schedule could change. In its written answers to public comments, the authority said the project had not been advertised and no contractor had been selected.
Upper Kirby's forecasts have changed more than once. At the April 2025 board meeting, Cisneros said bidding "would likely take place in the summer, with possible construction beginning in August," and reminded the board that Phase 1 would run from Kirby to Buffalo Speedway. A state accessibility registration for the Buffalo Speedway to Kirby segment listed an estimated start of March 1, 2026 and completion on May 25, 2027. In September 2025, Community Impact reported Phase 1 starting at the end of 2026 and Phase 2, Kirby to Shepherd, starting in mid-2026. That would put the second phase ahead of the first.
None of those dates has been confirmed. An agenda item tells the public what a board might act on. It does not record a vote. As of October 3, 2026, no minutes for the June or September meetings, no bid notice and no award have been found. The September 16 agenda proves only that the bid question was on the table again.
The design page leaves some uncertainty of its own. It says design "began in 2024 and is expected to be completed by this summer," but it does not say which summer.
Shepherd Drive, a year after "the coming weeks"
The Shepherd Drive project, which crosses both segments at their shared border, shows how long finishing work can take in this district. The Shepherd drainage and roadway contract was reported substantially complete as of January 23, 2024. By the April 2025 meeting, crews were still removing wooden poles and finishing the sidewalks around them. Streetlights had been installed but were not yet energized, and the board was told the project "should be finalized in the coming weeks." The September 16, 2026 agenda still lists an "update on construction progress and finalization" from Harper Brothers Construction.
Moving utility lines and finishing the sidewalks around them took the longest on Shepherd. On West Alabama, the Upper Kirby half is the one doing that kind of work.
What the Montrose plan says about living with the work
Montrose's written answers give the clearest description so far of what construction on West Alabama will be like. Lane closures will typically run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Work may go on around the clock, with any night work subject to City noise rules. The authority also said:
- The sidewalk on one side of the street will stay open, with places to cross at the end of each work zone.
- The contractor will work with businesses the week before any driveway closure.
- The contractor will decide whether work starts at Shepherd or at Spur 527.
- When a home's driveway is closed, the contractor will coordinate parking with the homeowner.
At Shepherd, the Montrose design is being changed to match Shepherd Drive's lane configuration, which has no left turn. Under the City's guiding mobility principles, the authority said, new bike lanes cannot be added and vehicle lanes cannot be removed on City roadway projects. East-west bicycle routes in that zone will continue to use the neighborhood bikeways on West Main and Hawthorne.
Upper Kirby has not published a comparable plan for traffic, phasing or driveway access. The one access detail in its board record involves St. John's School. Minutes from April 2025 describe talks with the school about access to its remote facilities and a "hot" street-crossing signal under consideration, along with outreach to other affected landowners and businesses.
The streets around it are also scheduled for work
West Alabama is one of several projects on the same agenda. On September 16, Kirby Drive from US 59 to Bissonnet and Bissonnet from Buffalo Speedway to Edloe were both listed for planning-progress updates. Buffalo Speedway from US 59 to Westheimer was up for a design services contract. In Montrose, Community Impact reported on September 24, 2026 that Mandell Street construction was expected to start in late October or early November. The Montrose authority has said the Mandell work will overlap with the start of West Alabama construction.
Kirby Drive and Buffalo Speedway are the main north-south routes across West Alabama in Upper Kirby, and both are still in planning or design. On the Upper Kirby side of Shepherd, the next date to watch is a bid advertisement for West Alabama. Questions can go to Lee Cisneros, Projects Director at the Upper Kirby District, at (713) 524-8000.
Street projects like this one affect how a block works day to day for years. For an Upper Kirby or River Oaks owner thinking about the next few years, that timing matters. Carol Wolfe Properties follows these projects block by block and can tell you how the West Alabama schedule relates to your property. Request a Confidential Home Valuation.
