BY MARK SMITH, PLA

The planned B.B. Owen Park at Trinity Falls will no doubt quickly become a recreational destination for North Texas.  Backed by a generous $11 Million endowment from the B.B. Owen Trust, this 300-acre park will feature athletic fields, an amphitheater, multiple playgrounds, picnic areas, and miles of nature and interpretive trails.  What makes this park truly special, however, is its role in preserving a significant section of the Trinity River corridor.  

Located in McKinney, Texas in an area just ripe for development, the Elm Fork of the Trinity River and its surrounding floodplain might have been viewed only as something that should be mitigated to allow for more construction.  Instead, thanks in large part to the priorities set by the B.B. Owen Trust, this river corridor will be preserved and celebrated as part of the site’s heritage and part of the larger North Texas ecosystem.

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Last month, one of Georgetown’s largest and most anticipated projects broke ground.  The $700M Wolf Ranch master planned community will include 1,600 homes, 900 multi-family units, 140 acres of parks, trails, and open space, and space for new retail and restaurant development.  RVi has been involved with the project since 2013, providing master planning and entitlement assistance.  Developer Hillwood Communities worked closely with the City of Georgetown over the course of two years to create a sound development agreement that won unanimous approval by the City Council in 2015.  Wolf Ranch is being designed according to Hillwood’s LiveSmart principles: Sense of Community, Technology, Healthy Living, Environmental Stewardship, and Education & Enrichment.

You can read our in-depth interview with Brian Carlock of Hillwood Communities here.

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BY ROBERT WHITTEMORE

Earlier this month, four members of the RVi Houston office took time out of their Saturday morning to slosh through the mud and water in an effort to plant trees in Houston’s Memorial Park. Equipped with a shovel, boots, and planting knowledge, Chris Patterson, Jamie Hendrixson, Robert Whittemore, and Michael Minero joined the hundreds of volunteers who turned out to plant over 1,500 trees and shrubs in Houston’s largest municipal park. The volunteer event was attended by local politicians including Houston’s newly-elected Mayor, Sylvester Turner.  This tree planting effort is part of the first phase of the new Memorial Park Master Plan, which was adopted by the City of Houston in April 2015 as an initiative to restore, consolidate, tend, reconnect and enhance over 1,500 acres of Houston’s Memorial Park.

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