WACO, Texas (KXXV) — Waco's City Council approved the contract for design of the first part of the Downtown Redevelopment Plan. They will begin engineering, landscaping and architecture in the Barron's Branch District.
- This design and pre-development phase now costs $12.3 million, after $6 million in funding was added.
- The city says that money will reallocated from other parts of the budget, including $3 million from waste water and $3 million from water.
- The city is not going into debt to fund the design process — the funds that this will be coming from is not associated with bonds or debt at this point.
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"Just bringing back some of that Waco history as they develop, I think that's important so it's not just a transformation, but it's a lot of historical reference and relevance in some of those downtown plans," Cory Duncan said.
Duncan has lived in Waco his entire life — he says it's time for growth.
"The more tourism, the higher the income base and of course that brings in more dollars and revenue to the citizens more money in the pocket — there's still some adjustments to be made," he said.
"As all things grow, there is going to be growing pains."
Duncan, who owns Haus Realty, says the city's development plans benefit him as both a resident and business owner, but opponents of the plan say they're concerned the city is growing too fast.
On Tuesday, city council approved the contract for design of the first part of the downtown redevelopment plan.
This means they will begin the engineering, landscaping, and architecture in the Barron's Branch District.
"We want to capture not only the folks that live downtown, but again we want to draw in the entire community to share those stories with us — what downtown has meant and what it can mean again," Tom Balk said.
This design and pre-development phase now costs $12.3 million, after $6 million in funding was added.
The city says the money will reallocated from other parts of the budget, including $3 million from waste water and $3 million from water.
"We're excited to be kicking off this phase, preparing to launch public engagement in August," Balk said.
Waco Director of Strategic Initiatives Tom Balk says the design phase includes everything that happens before bidding and construction.
Phase 1A is expected to take around two years.
