Spicewood Springs Road's Finish Line Moved Again. Here's What's Left to Build

The two-mile stretch of Spicewood Springs Road between Loop 360 and Mesa Drive is now scheduled to wrap up in summer 2027 instead of late 2026. In its August 11, 2026 update, the City of Austin blamed weather delays in spring and early summer. It also said crews would start building shared-use paths on both sides of the road in September, while rain gardens and lane paving continue through the fall. That makes this fall the first season when the project starts to look like the road the city designed. Much of the money and time spent since December 2023 went into work that doesn't show from a car window.

A Deadline With a Long Paper Trail

The latest delay is easier to understand alongside the earlier ones. The project's history is mostly a record of start dates that kept moving. The completion date has only moved once since crews showed up, and that's the move announced in August.

In 2017, Community Impact reported that the improvements could be done by 2020. By 2018, coverage put the start date in 2021 or 2022. The city didn't break ground until December 2023, and KXAN reported at the time that construction would be finished by December 2026. That date held through Community Impact's February 2025 update. The August revision is the first time the completion date has moved since construction began.

Nearly a Third of the Contract Is a Water Project

The headline number on the city's project page is $31 million from the 2016 Mobility Bond. The construction contract itself is bigger and split differently. On September 21, 2023, Austin City Council approved the contract with DeNucci Constructors, Community Impact reported. The council agenda item sets it at $31,076,814 plus a $3,107,681 contingency, for a total of up to $34,184,495. The funding comes from two departments:

• Transportation and Public Works: $24,129,396
• Austin Water: $10,055,099

That puts Austin Water's share at about 29 percent of the contract. The contract also covers extending water transmission lines and adjusting or improving wastewater lines, along with a stormwater system of underground drains, concrete pipe, box culverts, manholes, inlets and outfalls. It includes two detention ponds, water-quality ponds and rain gardens.

The February 2025 construction update shows what that looks like on the ground. Crews had installed more than 1,000 feet of waterline. They had also removed and replaced a 66-inch water valve where Spicewood Springs Road meets Old Spicewood Springs Road. The next items on the list were paving the north side starting at Loop 360 and moving west, installing a 48-inch water transmission line, and continuing work on retaining walls. The same update counted 5,000 square feet of finished sidewalks and driveways, which was the most visible progress at that point.

As a builder, I read that sequence as normal. Pipe, valves and drainage structures go in before finished pavement and paths, because nobody wants to cut into a new lane to reach a main underneath it. On a corridor carrying a 48-inch transmission line and a 66-inch valve, a lot of the schedule goes to work drivers won't see again once the road is finished.

What This Fall Adds Above Ground

The design the crews are building toward hasn't changed much since 2018. The city's preliminary engineering report that December picked what it called Alternative C: two vehicle lanes in each direction, a raised median with left-turn bays, a shared-use path on both sides, and new stormwater facilities. The 2023 contract describes the median as grass and calls for continuous shared-use paths on both sides.

Three pieces of that design are in progress right now, according to the city's August update:

1. Shared-use paths on both sides of the road, scheduled to start in September 2026
2. Rain gardens, continuing through the fall
3. Paving of the travel lanes, also continuing through the fall

Community Impact's September 15, 2026 roundup repeated that schedule and didn't report any later lane shift or change. We couldn't find any public update newer than August 11, so summer 2027 is still the city's current estimate. It isn't a promise.

The paths are the first part of the project built for people on foot or on bikes. At the Mesa Drive end, they meet the intersection where the city's separate Mesa Drive safety project lays out buffered bike lanes on both sides of Mesa from Spicewood Springs Road toward Far West Boulevard. The two projects meet at that corner. Neither city source says the facilities were designed as one connected route, and no source we found maps a link from the new paths to Bull Creek trail access near Loop 360.

The Median Changes How Driveways Work

A raised median with left-turn bays changes more than traffic flow. It changes how every driveway along the road works. That concern came up early. In 2017, Community Impact documented feedback about access to Stillhouse Canyon Condos and Spicewood Springs Animal Hospital, including difficulty turning into and out of the animal hospital. That was feedback before construction, not a current complaint. It does show the tradeoff the design was always going to bring: fewer places to turn left across traffic, with dedicated bays where turns are allowed.

The contract also anticipated temporary inconvenience. It calls for lane closures, detours and temporary pavement at changing spots along the road, plus outreach to nearby businesses and residents. In February 2025, the city listed road and lane closures, tree trimming where branches got in the way of equipment, and noise, vibration and dust as things to expect.

Work Hours Have Changed Three Times

If you're planning trips through the work zone from memory, your information may be out of date. The posted construction hours have changed with each phase:

Roadwork will take place on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on weekends from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

That's the current city project page, which also asks drivers to follow the posted work zone speed limit and allow extra time. In August 2024, Community Impact reported weekday hours of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday hours of 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. By February 2025, the schedule was 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day, with workers and trucks arriving around 6:30 a.m.

Under the current schedule, weekday work starts two hours later and ends three hours earlier than it did in early 2025. Weekend work runs the full twelve hours. That makes a Saturday or Sunday errand along this stretch the time you're most likely to drive through active work.

What Summer 2027 Will Look Like

When the city calls the project substantially complete, the corridor between Loop 360 and Mesa Drive should have four travel lanes, a grass median with left-turn bays, shared-use paths on both sides, two detention ponds, and rain gardens and water-quality ponds catching runoff that used to drain with nothing to slow it down. Under all of that will be the new 48-inch water transmission line and the replaced 66-inch valve at Old Spicewood Springs Road. The city first put the paths on paper in its December 2018 engineering report, and crews started building them this September.

If you own a home along Spicewood Springs Road or plan to sell one before summer 2027, a finished median, new driveway access and a path out front change what a buyer sees and how a listing should describe it. As a LEED AP with a background in construction, I'm happy to look at what the finished corridor means for your property. Albert Allen can schedule a discovery call to talk through timing, access and how to describe the road honestly while the work is still going on.