Plans to reshape University Parks Drive and develop riverside green space with a farmers market as part of the Brazos Promenade project won positive reviews at a public meeting Monday.
At the second meeting of its kind hosted by the city of Waco and City Center Waco at the Texas Life Annex, a few dozen people gathered information and made their voices heard about the project along University Parks Drive that is set for construction in September or October.
The entire project will include a full-service hotel and restaurant, a destination restaurant and music venue, mixed-use residential space and more amenities. The public portions of the early phases — the Waco Downtown Farmers Market and University Parks Drive from Franklin Avenue to Interstate 35 — will include a dog park, entertainment space and food truck space.
Paris Rutherford, co-founder of Catalyst Urban Development, presented plans for the project that will bring wider medians, landscaping and a more pedestrian and bicyclist-friendly stretch of University Parks Drive. Trolley stops will be included along the stretch.
“The goal for this is to create a destination for citizens of Waco and for folks coming in from the outside, as something to do as a northern anchor to what’s happening down Webster (Avenue) at Magnolia,” Rutherford said. “It kind of creates an overall northeastern downtown district that is congruent that draws in the university, draws in tourists, but also residents.”
Nearly 100 percent of written responses from the input meeting last month were positive, Rutherford said.
Iva Smith, owner of the Jockey Club barbershop on Elm Avenue, said she supports the plan because she believes it will benefit East Waco.
“I think it’s great,” Smith said. “We have to change and be with the times, and we’re wanting things to look nice in Waco because it’s growing. I think it’s a wonderful thing.”
And Devin Li, of the organic tea business Waco Cha, was also eager for the farmers market to return to the Brazos River from its current location in the parking lot of the McLennan County Courthouse.
“I think it’ll draw a lot of people. … People are likely to stay longer because of the grass and the trees,” Li said. “Right now it’s super windy at times. Our tent flipped once because of the big wind.”
Alfred Solano, president and CEO of the Cen-Tex Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said he remembers hearing from Rutherford early on in the process when he sat on the board for City Center Waco, a city-aligned nonprofit that studies downtown development. He supports the plans and is excited for the housing opportunities and the dog park.
“This has taken longer than we all anticipated, but that’s the way it goes,” Solano said. “And I’m glad the (soil) remediation is done. We’re looking forward to having some of our businesses be able to be a part of the up-to-the-street buildings.”
The placement of restrooms at the farmers market has come up in discussions. Rutherford said his experience is that permanent public restroom facilities oftentimes become magnets for crime.
Additionally, the budget does not include funds for such a structure. He said discussions with the city are ongoing about how best to serve visitors.
“We all call them port-a-potties; that’s not what I’m talking about,” Rutherford said. “What I’m talking about is something that is a very nice permanent facility that has hedge rows around it, but it’s not the building.”
Dwight Allman, a Waco resident who frequents the farmers market with his wife, said advocates of the market are pleased by the attention it has received in the process.
“I think the city has done a good job of providing space,” Allman said. “In some broad sense, I welcome the development. I also welcome scrutiny of it, but on the whole, I’m enthusiastic about what’s being proposed.
— WACOTRIB