Bazan: Second span of Pharr Bridge should be operational by the start of 2026

PHARR, Texas – The eagerly-awaited second span for the Pharr International Bridge should be completed by the end of the year and operational by the beginning of 2026.

Luis Bazan, director of the bridge, made the announcement at an RGV StartUp Week event at the Pharr Global Business Hub. He was a panelist with Antonio Rodriguez, director of cargo services and foreign trade zone administrator at the Port of Brownsville. The panel moderator was Rick Carrera, economic development director for the Council for South Texas Economic Progress.

“We’re very excited of where we stand right now. Forty-five percent of the (second span) bridge is constructed. We have a completion date of the end of December, 2025, and to become operational by a beginning of 2026,” Bazan said. 

Bazan pointed out that Mexico held a groundbreaking ceremony for the second span in March 2023 and a ribbon-cutting ceremony in late summer, 2024. “Mexico has finished their side, their portion. We’re still working on ours. We’re at 45% construction on our end.”

In total, Bazan said, Pharr has been working on the project for the past five or six years. That is not long, he explained. “It used to be that to get it all planned out, to build it, it could take anywhere from ten to 12 years, even longer,” he said. 

Bazan said the negotiations with Mexico started in earnest in 2018. “That is when things really started taking off. It took a lot of lobbying in Mexico. Mexico had just finished constructing or modernizing their aduana, that’s the Mexican port of entry. And they did that in record time. That gave us a really good indication that Mexico was heading in the right direction.”

Armed with the knowledge that Mexico was keen to have the second span, Pharr officials went to Washington, D.C., to lobby for a revised presidential permit. Bazan said that was secured in record time. 

Bazan said partnerships and collaboration are key in a project of this magnitude. 

“What we’ve been doing for a long time now at the Pharr International Bridge is executing collaborative partnerships. If you’re not tied at the hip, with the right people, the right partners, whether it be local, state or federal, you’re really doing a disservice to trade. We pride ourselves on this,” Bazan said.

“We take great pride at the Pharr Bridge of being part of many, many different associations that cover a large range of diverse industries. And the reason why we do that is so that we can learn. Learn from them. Learn what it is that keeps them up at night. Learn what it is that that we can do to improve our crossings.”

Bazan continued: “We’re not building infrastructure to park vehicles. We’re building a bridge, basically, to bridge the gap between two countries, and these two countries are bridging the gap for global trade. As far as our numbers go, Pharr International Bridge is trading with about 90 different countries worldwide. And that might be expanding soon because of the current trade and tariff challenges.”

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