At a Sept. 16 meeting, council members approved a nearly $112,000 agreement with construction management firm Ramel Company to help the city’s Parks and Recreation Department select a contractor and oversee the construction of an extension to the Timber Creek trail.
“[The project] is part of an overall vision to create a community that provides residents accessibility to our parks, trails and open space preserves,” said Stacie Anaya, parks and recreation director, in a city memo.
The gist
Currently, the Timber Creek Hike and Bike Trail consists of a little more than one-and-a-half miles of paved trail that runs from near the Thrive recreation center in the western part of the city to Lewisville’s Central Park.
With the approval of the approximately one-mile extension, the existing trail will be connected to a new trail that will run east along the northern edge of Timber Creek from Central Park to Corporate Drive. Plans for the trail extension include 12-foot-wide concrete paths, pedestrian bridges, elevated boardwalks and low-water crossings, in addition to new trail access points that will feature seating, bike racks, waste receptacles and signage.
“The future trail will weave through the existing dense riparian corridor with special attention to preserving trees and existing topography where possible, making this a difficult construction project,” Anaya stated in the memo.
According to a request for proposals for artists to create signage highlighting the local ecosystem along the trail, the city plans to begin work on the extension project in spring 2025 and take around 18-24 months to complete.
The context
According to the city memo, Lewisville officials have been working with landscape architecture firm TBG Partners, which has received at least $431,000 for design and project management services, since 2021 on the trail extension project.
Anaya said the project is a “key component” to meeting the goals laid out in a portion of the Lewisville 2025 vision plan that seeks to expand and enhance the city’s greenspace by creating more trail connections and increasing the accessibility to public open spaces so that each resident is within a 10-minute walk from their home.
