Old Floyd Casey Stadium site to be redeveloped into multi-million dollar mixed-use, residential neighborhood

WACO, Texas (KWTX) - Floyd Casey stadium, located at S 29th St and Dutton avenue in Waco, was home to Baylor University’s football team for 64 seasons.

Having first opened back in 1950, the stadium served both Baylor and the Waco community for many years, becoming a landmark for the city.

The stadium closed back in 2013 for the new McLane stadium, and on May 14, 2016, the historic football stadium was demolished after the city ended up with the property in a land swap with the university. After the stadium’s demolition, the city was left with 72 acres of open land.

For the past eight years, the massive property has been relegated to dirt and grass, but soon, the land will be transformed into a multi-million dollar housing development and park.

Jeremy Pesina, the city’s assistant director of economic development, explained that there were many possibilities for this land, but they wanted to fill a need in the community.

“Obviously, housing has been a huge need and then seeing redevelopment inside the core of Waco in district two would be a huge win,” Pesina said.

In 2019, the city began searching for a partner to help them achieve this, which is where Turner Brothers Real Estate joined the project.

Jonathan Garza, Turner Brothers director of development, said, “The RFP was kind of an open concept of what you wanted to do… we sent in our concept, our ideas, so there was a pool of individuals and different companies that worked with the city on their ideas and then we were picked.”

Their group proposed a neighborhood that has a diversity of housing, with lots ranging from as little as 2,250 square feet to as large as 20,000 square feet, and different price points for each.

“Our goal was to create something where the neighborhood could kind of grow up in that same area,” Garza said.

According to Garza, their neighborhood will have a mixed use and residential district that includes seven different types of homes, all integrated together in a walkable neighborhood that’s connected to different parts of the city.

“We’ve got trails within our portion of the neighborhood that connects to the city parks, and so we’re working closely with them to make sure that those are connecting points to the park, to South Waco rec center, and then within the neighborhood as well,” Garza explained.

The adjoining park, which is the other half of this project, is being overseen by the city’s Parks and Recreation Department.

Director Jonathan Cook explained that they’ve spent the last few years deciding what to do with the 30 plus acres of park land and designing it.

“It’s going to really focus on inclusivity,” Cook said, “an inclusive playground, renovations to our track complex, and really connectivity to the neighborhood that’s already here and then also the neighborhood that’s going to be developed across the way”.

Their park will also include a trail alongside the Waco Creek, a plaza area and big lawn for people to gather, and plenty of other amenities for everyone to enjoy.

Cook says that “This is going to be a regional destination for our whole community to be able to come together… that’s the ultimate goal”.

And to ensure this development represents the surrounding communities, Pesina says they have made sure to include them throughout the process.

“There’s obviously some fear whenever you’re building something new into an existing community, but one of the things that we tasked turner brothers is you know make sure that you hold those open meetings, make sure that you communicate with the neighborhood,” Pesina explained.

The city is also doing their part to “make sure that the neighborhood sees that we’re not trying to replace them, we’re trying to integrate this new neighborhood with them, because they’re a super valuable part of who Waco is and we don’t want to lose that story, we just want to add to it,” Pesina said.

According to Cook, the whole development aims to highlight “a lot of the Hispanic heritage that we have in this area, and you’re going to see that come through in the design of the park”.

The neighborhood will also have streets named after local Hispanic figures.

Armando Arvizu is the co-founder of the Cesar Chavez Neighborhood Association and a voice for the Hispanic community in Waco.

He says for so long they’ve had no strong sense of identity here in Waco, which he is working to change one step at a time.

“I said to myself, ‘you know, we have over 31 percent Hispanic in the community, but we don’t have anything to show for it or self-identity,’ so that’s the driving force for me to spearhead, or my association to spearhead these street names,” Arvizu shared.

Seven streets within the neighborhood will be dedicated to these Hispanic figures, but they are still in the process of choosing who to name each street after.

Arvizu shared a couple of the names being considered, including “Ernesto Fraga, he was a publisher at the Tiempo newspaper, which does not exist here in Waco anymore. And we also have Judge Fernando Villarreal, he was the first Hispanic judge in McLennan county”.

“These local Hispanic leaders in our community made such a difference and we want to be able to honor them and really tell that story,” Cook says.

This is a massive project that’s been years in the making, so many people are now wondering when it will finally be completed?

Both Turner Brothers and city officials say it will be a few more years.

Construction on the neighborhood is already underway, but right now it is just the horizontal construction, which is everything under or on the ground.

“We started horizontal construction in October of last year, so a lot of what we’re doing right now is your utilities, underground work, roads, and then working with groups like Oncor and your cable providers to get all of their stuff within the site,” Garza explained.

Once that is completed they will begin vertical construction, which includes houses and any other structure above ground.

According to Garza, they anticipate to start that by the end of 2024.

“Overall it’s a five year project, so as far as housing absorption goes, houses will be built in hopefully over a five year period, the whole 259 houses will be completed,” Garza said.

As for the parks, the city is still finalizing their design; but they expect to start construction in spring of 2025, which will take anywhere from 12 to 18 months to complete.

When it’s finally finished, Pesina says this development will bring more families to Waco for years to come.

“We lose a lot of families to the surrounding communities because there’s newer homes and newer homes are also the master developed neighborhoods where there’s sidewalks, and there’s parks, and those are the amenities that families look for,” Pesina said, “And so for us it’s a high value to bring those families, instead of in the surrounding community or in a suburb, to bring them into Waco”.

While it may not look like much is happening right now, the city of Waco and its partners are working behind the scenes to bring something new that the community can cherish for years to come.