Kyle, one of Austin's suburbs to the south, could become home to the first Central Texas tunnel built by Elon Musk's Boring Company.

Musk’s tunneling and infrastructure company — which quietly has moved its headquarters to Pflugerville, another Austin suburb — recently received approval from the Kyle City Council for a $50,000 professional services agreement to take intial steps to conduct a feasibility study for the project.

The proposed tunnel would connect Kyle Crossing, a mostly retail development at FM 1626 and Interstate 35, with Plum Creek,  a 2,200-acre development that currently includes about 5,000 single-family homes and apartments, with thousands more residential units to come, along with retail and commercial development.

The agreement with the city of Kyle would allow the Boring Co. to begin engineering work needed to access the area for the proposed tunnel, which is being dubbed a "pedestrian underpass." A number of additional steps and approvals would be needed before the project became a reality.  

“This is really the first agreement with the Boring Co. and then following this agreement will be the design-build agreement,” Scott Sellers, Kyle city manager, said during a recent Kyle City Council meeting. 

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If built, the paved tunnel would be 12 feet in diameter and go under the Union Pacific Railroad tracks south of FM 1626, which is named Kyle Parkway within Kyle's city limits. The areas are currently linked by an overpass on FM 1626 that passs above the railroad tracks.

Bikes, scooters and small electric vehicles, such as golf carts, would also be permitted in the tunnel, which would be outfitted with lighting and security cameras, according to the proposal documents.

"The pedestrian underpass will connect people from the region to encourage multimodal movement to leisure and outdoor activities and integrate into the urban environment. The surrounding area will connect to a destination park, adjacent professional offices, dining, and retail options,” according to the documents.

If the project is ultimately approved, the tunnel could be built in a matter of months, according to the company.

The professional services agreement outlines a nine-step plan that includes a site visit, engineering studies, a geotechnical investigation to analyze the soil and foundation of the proposed tunnel area, and a report. It also starts the permitting process with Union Pacific, which has also been involved in preliminary discussions.    

Sellers said the underpass would be part of the city’s wider trail system, which is named the Vybe. Sellers told Kyle City Council members the project had not “just occurred overnight” but was something that had been worked on for several years with the developer of the Kyle Crossing project. 

Sellers said the agreement will allow the Boring Co. to determine if there is anything abnormal within the subsurface where the tunnel would be built and allow the company to come back with a design-build agreement.

The city originally considered adding a pedestrian bridge in the area but pivoted to a tunnel after the Texas Department of Transportation deemed a bridge unsafe. The area includes high-voltage electrical lines, along with being adjacent to the railroad tracks. Sellers said Union Pacific has raised concerns about the project, which the city of Kyle aims to address.

"We believe there will be minimal or no destruction at all to the surface development," Sellers said. He said the section where the tunnel would be built is in a substrate called "Austin chalk" a prime material for tunneling. 

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Several Kyle City Council members raised several concerns related to the project, including potential flooding, safety concerns, cost and the public benefit. 

The professional services agreement would be paid for by Central Southwest Texas Development, along with $76,000 to Union Pacific for any expenses for needed improvements. The project would ultimately be paid for through a private agreement with the developer as part of $3 million in funds set aside by the city. 

The Boring Co. did not formally speak at the meeting, but Andrew Crawford, who said he is a human resources manager for the company in Texas, spoke in support of the project and said he lives in the area. 

"To me, it's very simple. This is a Texas-built tunnel boring machine. When's the last time you can say something like that? It's a Texas-built tunnel boring machine digging a Texas tunnel with no new taxes added. I think this is a great project. I think this puts you guys at the forefront of innovation for an innovative company," Crawford said.

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Founded in California in 2016, the Boring Co. is involved with a number of product lines based around tunneling, with those products designed to be used for utilities, pedestrians and freight services. It also is working on loop services that are intended to transport passengers between stations using autonomous vehicles at speeds of up to 150 miles per hour.

In Central Texas, the company has operations in both Pflugerville and Bastrop County, where it plans to build an 80,000 square-foot manufacturing and warehouse facility, according to filings. At the same site, the company plans to test its tunneling equipment and dig "as many tunnels as needed for research and development purposes" according to filings with the state.

The Boring Co. currently has two operational tunnels, a 1.1-mile test tunnel in Hawthorne, California, and a 0.8-mile tunnel underneath the Las Vegas Convention Center. Las Vegas officials have also approved a 29-mile tunnel system containing 51 stations under the city.