Waco OKs $500K to plan development around Heritage Square, municipal building

The Waco City Council is moving forward with a planning process for the areas around City Hall and the Brazos riverfront, with its eye on office and mixed-use development, a new municipal services center and the possible relocation of the Texas Ranger Museum.

The council approved expanding a $50,000 contract with M. Arthur Gensler Jr. & Associates to a $532,000 contract for a master plan for a 90-acre area downtown and design services for a new “Waco municipal center building.”

City Manager Bradley Ford said the city is very early in planning, and the master plan will likely take some time.

Waco formed an initial $50,000 contract with M. Arthur Gensler Jr. & Associates on April 4, setting forth plans to develop office space, hotels, residences, complementary retail and structured parking.

The new $532,000 contract includes four focus areas for future planning: community input on the vision for Heritage Square, using community input to create a master plan for the area surrounding City Hall, plans for a new city municipal building, and a plan for a new cultural destination in the planning area, which could be the new placement of the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame, according to a city council document.

The new municipal building would “consolidate city functions into an efficient and modern building,” according to city council documents.

Bledsoe-Miller

The council also heard a presentation Tuesday on a project just across the Brazos River from City Hall, turning the Bledsoe-Miller Community Center into a high-tech learning center.

Deputy City Manager Deidra Emerson said work is underway to bring a science, technology, engineering, arts and math center to the Bledsoe-Miller center, which opened in 1971 at 300 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Bledsoe-Miller’s community center operations will be transferred to the city-owned former Doris Miller YMCA facility about a mile away, at 1020 Elm Ave. The city bought the former YMCA property last year and is aiming to open renovated facilities there, including an indoor pool, by summer.

That will free up Bledsoe-Miller for educational and enrichment purposes.

“This 14,000 square-foot facility on the Brazos River with an adjoining park will provide STEAM-related programming for our youngest to oldest residents of the city of Waco,” Emerson said. “The renovated facility will house networking area, industry training rooms, specialized labs with relevant equipment, necessary infrastructure, state-of-the-art classrooms and collaboration areas.”

Mayor Dillon Meek said the STEAM center will check many boxes for the Waco community.

“It is going to create a pathway to financial security for members of our community regardless of their background,” Meek said. “This creates a place for families to come together and have fun. This creates an important capital investment in one of the most strategic locations on our river with an incredible view of our downtown on either side of it, sitting right next to our Doris Miller memorial.”

Emerson said the design of the center will focus on creating modular, adaptable labs that provide interdisciplinary, project-based learning experiences for people of all ages.

She said the space will be conducive to events the city already puts on and will give them a new home, including the Water Education Today program, bird watching, kids’ cooking classes, Minecraft and Roblox clubs the library offers, gardening activities and other STEAM-related activities.

Emerson said the city plans to put $6 million from its federal American Rescue Plan Act funding into the project, and Baylor University plans to contribute $500,000 toward the center’s implementation. SpaceX and M&M Mars also are looking at opportunities to partner with the STEAM center, and she has been in conversation with the technology company Cisco to bring its networking academy to the STEAM center, Emerson said.

“The program is supported with earned certificates or certification and badges, as well as job opportunities,” Emerson said.

Council Member Andrea Barefield said she visited St. Philip’s College in San Antonio and got to see the Cisco Networking Academy in action.

“They had an entire integrated networking program that was one of the largest in the state,” Barefield said. “You had a whole room that was full of networking systems that taught those collegiate students how to serve major industries.”

Emerson said the next step for the center includes developing a program steering committee to ensure the facility is collaborative and best serves Wacoans, and the committee should be formed by next month.

She said there is also still work to be done in establishing cost for facility design, bringing the former community center building up to date for its new purpose. She said she will also continue to identify collaborators, possibly school districts, as well as additional funding opportunities.

Municipal judge

In other business during Tuesday’s city council meeting, City Secretary Michelle Hicks swore in Robert Garcia as Waco’s new municipal court judge.