By Josh Siatkowski | Staff Writer
The 20-year, four-stage plan to completely redesign downtown Waco along the Brazos River is one step closer to coming to life.
The project looks to build up the riverside between Mary and Waco Avenues by constructing parks and public spaces, building a new city hall, adding a sports entertainment district with a ballpark, creating a performing arts district and convention center and significantly improving overall walkability around the city.
The Herculean aspiration is moving toward reality after three years of planning alongside numerous design, engineering and development firms.
The first phase, which will resurface a square of roads outlined by 4th Street, University Parks, Washington Avenue and Jefferson Avenue, was filed with the Texas Department of Licensing and Registration in August with an initial budget of $75 million. In conjunction with the road repaving, the city filed to begin construction that will turn the undeveloped land within the square into Barron’s Branch Park, bringing the total cost of the first phase to $167 million.
Tom Balk, director of strategic initiatives for the City of Waco, said construction for the Barron’s Branch phase is expected to start in 2026 and end in late 2028.
“We’re at the point now where the design phase is wrapping up and the permitting phase is starting,” Balk said. “It starts to feel less speculative for our residents.”
Five districts, one city
The Waco Downtown Redevelopment Project, as it’s formally called, stretches nearly a mile along the side of the Brazos River and includes — or creates — five unique “districts.” Anchoring the development on the west end by Waco Avenue is a sports entertainment district, which will include a new ballpark. On the east end, a performing arts district, fit with a new convention center, hotel, performance venue and festival street, will go up around Mary Avenue and University Parks.
In between the two bookends will be three more districts. The Town Square District will consolidate Waco employees into one new city hall, and a new youth sports complex north of the river, though not owned by the city, could also be its own district. Finally, Barron’s Branch Park will sit just east of the ballpark district, being developed in the first two years of the project, starting in 2026.
While each district will have its own unique personality, Balk said the project is rooted in connectivity, from making the downtown more walkable to unifying the north and south sides of the city.
“The project boils down to trying to reestablish the gravitational center of our community at the river,” Balk said.
While most of the 100 acres to be developed are south of the river, the city is doing what it can to connect communities north of the river, like East Waco.
“The level of investment, the intensity of the development, needs to be similar [north of the river],” Balk said.
But even beyond investing in specific sites, Balk and the city had a deeper question in mind: walkability.
“It’s less to do with the specific sites, and it’s everything to do with the fabric that connects them,” Balk said. “What does it take to make Waco’s downtown one that people want to spend time in?”
Many years, many players
The project’s timeline is a wide one, starting with preparations in 2022, and followed by 12-20 years beginning in 2026.
The construction will happen in four phases, ranging from two to four years in length. Barron’s Branch Park — the phase that was recently registered with TDLR — will encompass two years of construction to repave the streets around the park, construct the park and dig up Barron’s Branch Creek, which is currently underground. Also in this first phase is construction near Heritage Square, which will see a new city hall and Waco ISD building.
According to Balk, starting with a local park is also a signal to residents that this project was done for “the home team.”
“Barron’s Branch Park is an attraction that they will use and value and appreciate,” Balk said. “Phase 1A does some critical functional things, and it also importantly delivers on showing to our residents that this project truly is to serve them. There’s a big underlying question for everybody: ‘is this about tourism?’”
For Balk, the answer is no.
The second phase, which will last in years four through eight, will be for the construction of the convention center and greater performing arts district. Years eight through 10 will focus on the town center, and the sports entertainment district will be the final phase.
To complete the project, Waco has enlisted the help of multiple firms, including lead developer Hunt Development Group and subcontracted consultants MVVA and Walker Partners.
Hunt will oversee the entire project, while MVVA, a national architecture and landscaping firm, is responsible for more building and design-related tasks. Walker Partners, the only Waco-based firm of the three, is responsible for infrastructure items like street pavement, water, sewer and drainage systems, sidewalks, telecom and traffic lights.
Walker Partners Vice President and Project Manager for the Waco Downtown Redevelopment Project Jacob Bell said that with Walker Partners’ connection to the city and its businesses, they have been able to provide input to Hunt and MVVA, while also providing business to other Central Texas businesses.
“We provide some context and continuity when dealing with out-of-town firms,” Bell said. “With us being local, we are the commonality between projects all over the central Texas area, so we’re able to say, ‘on this project we just finished, we used these lights, we used these trees and we used these brick pavers.’”
Double, triple wins
Synergy is a common theme of the project. Aside from the additional business for local design firms, Balk also called parts of the project “a double win, a triple win or better.”
The new city hall and Waco ISD buildings are an example of these triple wins, Balk said. Since they’re currently housed in numerous buildings across downtown, the challenges of managing numerous locations have become strenuous.
“The downside is threefold,” Balk said. “Our public has a harder time finding us for services they need. It’s also harder to manage a workforce that’s all spread out. And then thirdly, all of those facilities have similar costly capital improvement schedules, and so consolidating in the downtown building can help address those topics.”
Waco ISD’s new building will solve similar issues.
“Waco ISD was facing some of the same questions,” Balk said. “They’ve got a significant amount of acreage in the downtown that is aging out and they don’t know what future plans for them will entail.”
For Barron’s Branch Park, there are also numerous upsides. According to Balk, alongside the new park, the city and its residents are getting “nuts and bolts functionality for growth to happen downtown.”
As construction begins in 2026, the project is expected to commence with limited traffic and business impact. Balk said the road resurfacing can likely happen one lane at a time and because the Barron’s Branch Park lot is currently floodplain, there are no businesses that will be torn down or closed off as a result of construction.
