Fences and portable restrooms off Jefferson Avenue mark the site where construction will soon begin on the biggest project in downtown Waco’s history.
Groundbreaking is set this fall for more than $213 million of work on Barron’s Branch District, the first phase of a long-term downtown redevelopment.
But it has been unclear how the site’s new construction will affect its oldest landmarks: A grove of live oak trees that may predate the city itself.
The oaks at University Parks Drive and Jefferson Avenue have survived flood and drought and an earlier effort to cut them down for a school track.
The Waco Bridge reached out to city officials about the trees’ fate this month after noting that explicit tree preservation rules in an earlier draft of the project’s development code had been removed. That code goes to the Waco City Council on Tuesday for discussion after the Waco Plan Commission’s approval this week.
City officials say some trees will need to be removed for road and utility work, including one ancient oak across from St. Francis on the Brazos Catholic Church that stands in the way of the planned extension of Third Street.
But city staffers are adamant that the district’s remaining giants factor into its future. They say the formal “legacy tree” protections once proposed in the building code won’t be necessary to preserve them. Waco officials said most of those trees will be incorporated into the city park planned for the middle of the property along Barron’s Branch. They said the city can use development agreements to protect trees on lots the city offers to developers.
“At all costs, I think they need to be saved,” said Clint Peters, director of development services for the City of Waco. “They just bring so much value to the project.”
A veteran Waco arborist agrees.
“Some of these trees were here when the early Waco settlers were moving into the area, and it’s very important to protect that history,” said Neill Goss, a certified master arborist and owner of Goss Tree Services, who toured the site this week with Bridge journalists.
Encompassing 19 acres on the former Indian Spring Middle School campus and track, the Barron’s Branch district is the first phase of a larger 100-acre redevelopment city leaders plan for downtown Waco.
Privately developed mid- and high-rise buildings are under negotiation for sections on Jefferson Avenue and Fourth Street along the district’s perimeter.
What protections remain
The Waco City Council on Tuesday will review the 141-page stack of design rules — called the “form-based code” — that will determine nearly every aspect of the redevelopment’s look and feel. The discussion is set for the 3 p.m. work session at Waco Convention Center’s Bosque Theater. A vote is set for Sept. 15.
The code will set maximum building heights, outline architectural style and lists the individual plants and trees preferred for landscaping. But it does not determine what trees to protect.
That wasn’t always the case. Earlier drafts explicitly protected “legacy trees,” including “large trees such as those at University Parks and Jefferson,” according to a code draft from last October.
Dropping those protections was a practical matter, said Peters, the Waco development official. Waco officials decided to follow the lead of other cities with tree preservation ordinances and roll it out as a citywide initiative, rather than grafting an ordinance into the form-based code, which only applies to 100-acre development area. What does remain in the code is an incentive system for developers, offering relief from landscaping requirements if trees are preserved.
Still, he said the city hopes to limit any removals outside of those needed for road work, utilities and other infrastructure. The massive live oak on Jefferson Avenue, across the street from St. Francis Church, fits into that last category, positioned as it is beneath a powerline, against the road and nearly in the middle of the future extension of Third Street across the property.
Smaller trees along Fourth Street will also be removed, he said. So will an unspecified number of trees near the intersection of Washington and University Parks avenues to perform road work for the new district. But there is no desire to remove the grove of oaks at the corner University Parks and Jefferson Avenue, nor the towering oak — perhaps the largest on site — besides the defunct tennis courts, Balk said.
The tree has been measured as about 150 inches in circumference.
“We recognize the value and want to capitalize on their beauty, the views, the value that they have for our community, but also the resonance with the past,” Balk said.
Waco Independent School District officials in 2012 planned to cut the tree next to the tennis court as part of the construction of the Indian Spring Middle School track but repositioned the track design to avoid the tree after public opposition.
Waco City Council Member Darius Ewing, whose district includes the downtown project area, wanted to state his arboreal fandom for the record. “I’m quite notably pro-tree,” Ewing told the Bridge last week, and “in terms of the trees at the Barron’s Branch District location, it is certainly my desire that any tree that is not directly in the middle of a pad site … be protected.”
The shade of an old tree is invaluable in a hot state like Texas, he said. Money cannot buy the time it takes to grow one.
The case for old trees
Goss, the Waco arborist, is waiting to see the finalized site plans at Barron’s Branch before judging the city’s approach to tree conservation. The sun-scalded grass crackled as he walked through the site last week with an infrared camera.
On his screen, the shade of a mature oak showed as dark purple, 103 degrees, more than 20 degrees cooler than the exposed grass rendered in molten yellow by the camera. “If you want to know the value of trees, come out here and stand in the parking lot,” Goss said. “Then stand under the tree. You’ll feel the difference.” While enjoyed by humans, old trees are essential for other species. Trees of that age are like cities unto themselves, said Christian Tucker, and Waco-based native plant landscaper who founded the Waco chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas.
“There are 468 species that rely on oaks in our area. It’s a keystone species,” he told the Bridge on a call. Goss pointed to a dead branch on the Third Street oak condemned for utility work. Looking closer, it was perforated by boring insects. The holes, burls and hollows that come with age form a vast vertical habitat, he said.
But Goss, a native-Wacoan, is not cynical about the development. Just cautious. He plans to visit the district’s park when it opens to the public in late 2028. “It’s exciting,” Goss said. Until then, he’s eager to see the final designs.
