The city of Waco is moving forward with plans to realign South 18th Street with South 12th Street Road, creating opportunities for future development and a greater street capacity leading up to Loop 340.
The Waco City Council on Tuesday approved a $1.4 million contract with Quiddity Engineering, LLC for a schematic and drainage study for the project.
The project, estimated to cost more than $25 million, aims to extend South 18th Street from where it dead-ends near the South Waco Library. It would connect to South 12th Street Road at Garden Drive.
The goal is to create one cohesive path to Loop 340 that lends new options for the area’s development. As the city and Baylor University grow in the area those connections are crucial, Public Works Director Amy Burlarley-Hyland said.
A new corridor and utilities offer opportunities for development in the area, including 360 acres of city-owned land along South 12th Street Road. The city will eventually put out a request for proposals for housing development on the property.
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“This project is definitely a priority of city council’s due to its ability to connect La Salle Avenue to a future growth corridor on 12th Street (Road), where we anticipate new households being added on city-owned property in the area,” City Manager Bradley Ford said at Tuesday’s council meeting.
South 18th Street, part of a crosstown corridor that extends north to China Spring, comes to a dead end on the south end near the library. A parallel segment of South 16th Street runs south and turns into South 12th Street Road at Garden Drive near Rosemound Cemetery, continuing on to Loop 340.
The narrow two lane-road is disconnected from South 12th Street, several blocks away. It was been called 12th Street Road in newspaper articles for at least a century.
The rural road lacks shoulders or lighting and shows its age with potholes and cracks that have been patched multiple times.
The two-lane stretch of South 12th Street heading toward Loop 340 would be rebuilt and widened.
Burlarley-Hyland said the realignment is likely to make South 12th Street Road into a boulevard configuration similar to University Parks Drive, with two lanes in either direction separated by a median. The reconstruction will also feature utility improvements, streetscape and landscape elements, sidewalks and accessibility features compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Burlarley-Hyland said Quiddity’s yearlong schematic study will provide a high-level design showing options for route alignment, preferred utility corridors, right of way acquisition, topographic features and drainage, as well as an estimate of the project cost. The recommendations will be presented to the council for final decisions, she said.
The contractor will also look at environmental and archaeological barriers that could require additional permitting, and pin down property boundaries and right of way, Burlarley-Hyland said. She said floodplain modeling will also be done to identify ways to reduce flooding of the roadway, as Cottonwood Creek is prone to overtop the southern portion and the cul-de-sac near the library is slow to drain.
Drainage is an issue at the South 18th street dead end near South Waco Library.
The project is one of five involved in the city’s capacity streets program for 2024, which is intended to tackle years of deferred maintenance and capacity issues on older, two-lane rural roads. The program consists of projects that involve roadways in need of widening, new medians, extensions and connectivity and new intersections.
The city of Waco’s 2023-24 budget projects that the total cost of the 12th Street project would be $25.4 million.
Other streets to receive work from the program include:
- Flat Rock Road from Farm-to-Market Road 1637 to Tree Lake Drive, $21.5 million
- Speegleville Road from Highway 84 to the Middle Bosque River bridge, $35.9 million
- Chapel Road from Meadow Mountain Drive to Ritchie Road, $14.4 million, and
- West Warren Road from Ritchie Road to Farmiller Road, $14.7 million.
The 12th Street Road project is funded by a $3.98 million transfer from the Special Projects Reserve Fund to the Street Capacity Program Fund. According to the city’s online budget tool, the capacity program is budgeted for nearly $105 million through 2028.
