As the city of Waco prepares to roll out a master plan for Greater Downtown at a public meeting Thursday, key property owners are already on board with its ambitious vision.

The plan envisions 60,000 new residents and hundreds of new businesses in a 7.5-mile area surrounding downtown by 2050, and recommends public-private “catalyst projects” to jump-start development.

Sam Brown (left) and Wilbert Austin look over the site of a proposed park in East Waco.
Duane A. Laverty / Tribune-Herald

Those projects could include a fountain plaza between Bridge and Elm streets on the east side of the Brazos River and a major mixed-use riverfront on the west side.

The plan also recommends turning Mary Avenue into a “festival street” and tying the central city together with a transit network that might include streetcars.

The city’s consultant, Fregonese Associates of Portland, Ore., will present the plan and seek public comments at a meeting at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the Phoenix Ballroom, 401 S. Third St.

Among those attending will be Sam Brown, a banker who owns property on the river’s east side, and Rick Sheldon, who plans development on the west side.

“This vision plan’s timing is perfect,” Brown said. “We’ve had five or six downtown plans in the past, and maybe a tenth of those things would get done. But because of what’s happening now and who’s involved, I think this plan actually has legs to it.”

Brown’s father, Doug Brown, bought most of the Bridge Street and Elm Street corridor before his death last year. Sam Brown and his sister, Cathy Turner, plan to carry on their father’s vision of working with investors to revitalize the historic but blighted commercial district.

Brown said the family is moving forward with repairing or razing dilapidated buildings to make the corridor attractive to investors.

He said he will definitely preserve the old Kestner’s building and a movie theater across Elm Street, but the tiny buildings at the foot of the suspension bridge will be razed.

“We’re getting every building up to code or taken down,” he said. “We’ve got a meeting this week with contractors and engineers to determine what each building needs. The barrier before was that, if you got a building up to code and replaced the roof, what purpose was it for? That’s what this visioning project changes. There’s attention now, along with desire and sincerity and some federal and local funds to provide incentives for people to act.”

Brown said a fountain plaza between Bridge Street and Elm Street at Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. would be an incentive for surrounding private development, such as stores, offices, cafes, housing and a farmer’s market.

Then people would have a reason to walk from downtown to East Waco.

“The bridge is a destination,” he said. “But the closer you get to the other side, the more you think you probably shouldn’t be over there. . . . If you could buy the prettiest house in Waco and across the street is a dump, that’s going to affect your decision. That’s what we have in downtown. You look across the river, you see degradation and failure. It doesn’t encourage you to walk across the suspension bridge or put a business across the river.”

Councilman Wilbert Austin, who toured the proposed plaza site with Brown on Tuesday, agreed that the Imagine Waco plan provides the right cure for Elm Street’s blues.

“This place has been shut down 40, 50 years, and it’s time for something to happen,” he said. “This is going to help us put some businesses down here.”

He said he hopes to get a street in the area named for Doug Brown because of his foresight and hard work in assembling properties for redevelopment.

The elder Brown spent 15 years researching tangled titles and negotiating with heirs to buy the lots.

“He started with a dream, and he made a puzzle, putting it together piece by piece,” Austin said. “He didn’t finish it, but he got so close to it.”

The north side of the East Waco fountain plaza might incorporate some of the Lipsitz Metal Recycling Co.’s offices, with new two-story buildings that would block the view of the metal scrapyard behind it, said Chris McGowan, Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce urban development director.

McGowan said it appears unlikely that Lipsitz will completely move its operations in the next few years, but the Elm Street plaza doesn’t depend on that.

“They don’t have to let go of it,” he said. “We’re not in the business of displacing businesses or people.”

McGowan said he hopes the large vacant tract on the opposite side of Bridge Street can be acquired for redevelopment. The tract, which overlooks the Brazos River, is owned by Union Pacific Railroad.

Meanwhile, developer Rick Sheldon is pleased with the Imagine Waco plan’s vision for the west bank of the Brazos, between Franklin Avenue and Interstate 35.

He and his partners own riverfront land at the corner of Franklin Avenue and University Parks Drive, where he wants to put a four-star hotel, and he has presented concepts for a riverfront development all the way to Baylor University.

“It’s exciting,” he said. “We’re ready to get out of planning purgatory.”

In line with the Imagine Waco plan, Sheldon envisions a riverside esplanade that would link pedestrians with restaurants, office buildings, stores, a movie theater, a hotel and a signature cultural attraction.

He would like to see an urban space where surface parking is minimized through the use of parking garages and a streetcar system.

Sheldon, who has developed major commercial centers in Texas, said he likes the plan’s recommendation of creating a downtown development corporation that could buy land for redevelopment.

He said he would be willing to sell his land at cost if the corporation could be successful in redeveloping the riverfront.

“It’s not a moneymaker for us — it’s a civic thing,” Sheldon said.

jbsmith@wacotrib.com

757-5752

An artist’s rendering shows the proposed fountain plaza between Bridge and Elm streets on the east side of the Brazos River.

RELATED SEARCHES

• "Greater Downtown" urban master plan receives enthusiastic reception at Thursday's unveiling