Waco parks officials have finalized the vision for a $22 million park across the street from the former site of Baylor University’s Floyd Casey Stadium, where work is underway on a development featuring 259 single-family homes, apartments and commercial space.
The Waco City Council got a look at the vision during a presentation Tuesday from Waco Parks and Recreation Director Jonathan Cook and Conners Ladner, principal with Design Workship, the architecture firm the city hired to design the park. Major focuses for the park’s design include an all-abilities playground, connections with nature and other parks, the incorporation of Waco Creek, and honoring the area’s Hispanic heritage, which is also planned to be a theme of the Floyd Casey Village housing development.
Features designed for use by children of all physical abilities are planned for the playground at the new Floyd Casey park. A rendering presented to the city council shows the design concept for the playground.
Baylor’s football stadium brought crowds to the area for decades after opening in 1950, but the site has sat empty since 2016, when Floyd Casey Stadium was demolished following Baylor’s 2014 move to McLane Stadium.
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The city picked Turner Brothers Development and its $100 million plan in 2019 to redevelop the city-owned stadium site, after weighing multiple proposals. Plans for the park across Clay Avenue began taking shape when the city approved a $3 million contract with Design Workshop last summer. Parks officials held multiple community meetings to gather public input on the park. Other community meetings focused on the planned Floyd Casey Village, where officials gathered feedback on proposed Hispanic street names to honor Waco’s Hispanic heritage.
Ladner said during Tuesday’s presentation that the city wanted to create a must-visit destination in Waco with the park, in addition to serving the surrounding neighborhoods.
The final vision for the park will retain and enhance an existing track and field facility, leaving it in its current location rather than relocating it as considered in previous discussions. Ladner said Design Workshop has explored possibilities such as improving bleachers and resurfacing the track.
Next to the track, pickleball and basketball courts will be installed.
Across Waco Creek from the sports facilities will be the inclusive playground, multiple large lawns and a pavilion. The lawns are planned to feature art installations, a stage, food trucks and a market. The inclusive playground will feature elements such as a splash pad, inclusive swing, a sand pit, an arts and music zone and a nature zone.
The final section of the park, located along Jackson Avenue at the end of the walking trails and across the creek from Bell’s Hill Park, will feature more parking, a picnic area, skate park and baseball field.
In total, the park will have 850 parking spaces and 2.5 miles of walking and running trails. The trails will weave throughout the park and connect with the Floyd Casey Village development and nearby public spaces, including Bell’s Hill Park and the South Waco Community Center.
Cook said under the current timeline for the project, schematic designs and construction documents should be complete by the end of the year. The project should go to bid and work should start early next year.
The development of the Floyd Casey park comes alongside a number of other Waco parks projects. Work on a neighborhood park in China Spring, estimated to cost $3 million, is expected to start about the same time as the Floyd Casey project. With input from a series of public meetings last year, OJB Landscape Architecture is working on a vision for the redevelopment of Lions Park, Cook said.
He said he is excited for the future of Waco parks. In addition to the regional and neighborhood park projects, the city recently finished construction on a new complex for Lake Air Little League and Challenger Little League, with a ribbon cutting Saturday morning. The parks department is also working on plans to redevelop part of the city’s Brazos riverwalk, and construction is underway on the MKT Trail in East Waco, Cook said.
“It’s a golden era for parks in Waco,” Cook said. “I’m fortunate to have been with the city for a couple of decades now. The momentum and support that we not only have from our city council members and city management but from our community, they’re willing to make an investment in our park system. It means a lot to me personally, but I also know the benefit making this investment into parks means for future generations and for our city.”
