Frisco City Council members approved a $167,500 contract with Design Workshop Inc. for services including a site analysis and three framework studies for Grand Park during an Oct. 17 meeting.
The breakdown
A site analysis is one of the last steps before city officials see designs for the 275-acre park, Parks and Recreation Director Shannon Coates said at an Oct. 17 council work session.
“You’re so close,” Coates said.
Other deliverables from Design Workshop Inc. will include a project schedule, a work plan and a market study, according to meeting documents.
“This is the park planning process that we follow for everything,” Coates said. “This is actually the process we're going through for 4th Street Plaza; we're using this for Northwest Park; [and] we used it for Jimmy and Clara Jones [Park].”
What else?
The parks department worked closely with global design company Ideo to draft guiding principles and an overall vision for the park to help officials as they pick final designs.
“[Design Workshop Inc.] will spend quite a bit of time going through those documents and making sure that all of that work is not lost [and] that it is represented,” Coates said. “It is an important piece of what they need to combine with their site analysis to eventually get to drawings of what the park will look like.”
The background
Planning Grand Park has been a top priority for council members for nearly a decade.
A small portion of it is already accessible to residents at Big Bluestem Trail, which opened in November 2022 to introduce the community to the area.
What’s next?
The work outlined in the Design Workshop Inc. contract is expected to cover the first half of the planning process, Coates said.
An update on Grand Park’s progress will be shared at council’s January work session.
