The resolution will follow a public input meeting that will be hosted by the city later in July. The Lower 5 Plaza project, which will be located between East Virginia Street and Louisiana Street, plans for a bridge at ground level and a park that extends under SH 5.
In a nutshell
Engineering Director Gary Graham presented an update on the project during a July 15 McKinney City Council work session. The presentation came after the Texas Department of Transportation accelerated its schedule for reconstructing SH 5 between McMakin Street and Power House Street, according to the presentation.
That project was expected to start in 2028 or later, Graham said. TxDOT is now expecting to bid the project in late 2026 or early 2027, according to the presentation.
“TxDOT has revisited their schedules and have worked to accelerate that to get it back closer to the schedule they had originally talked about,” Graham said.
As part of the reconstruction project, TxDOT is designing and constructing the bridge as part of the Lower 5 Plaza project, according to McKinney’s website. TxDOT began an environmental assessment of the Lower 5 Plaza and it’s expected to conclude later this year.
The project is expected to impact five properties which would be purchased as part of the right-of-way acquisition process. While the project timeline has been updated, it’s still years away from happening, Graham said.
The next step is to notify impacted property owners about right-of-way acquisition, he said.
“We don’t want anybody on council to be surprised or the property owners to be surprised that this is happening,” he said. “We will be hand-delivering notices to those businesses about the public meeting and then they will be aware of the upcoming process.”
What’s next
The five impacted properties will be sent a letter and will have an opportunity to comment on the project. Those comments will be included in TxDOT’s environmental assessment, Graham said.
Additionally, the city is hosting a public input meeting for the project at 6 p.m. July 30 at McKinney City Hall, located at 401 E. Virginia St. City staff will present input gathered from that meeting to the council on Aug. 19, Graham said.
The public input meeting will start with a short presentation in the City Council chambers. Then people will be able to visit one of four identical stations in City Hall.
“We’re going to ask for input on what this park could be and start that initial step in this final design process,” he said. “We’re going to talk about safety and security. We’re going to talk about amenities, what kind of activities and programs are going to be there.”
Before the Lower 5 Plaza project can move forward, TxDOT will require a resolution of support from the council. Council members will consider that resolution during the same Aug. 19 meeting, Graham said.
What they’re saying
After Graham’s presentation, council member Justin Beller said it was a “huge risk” for three to four years because the costs of the project aren’t going down.
“While we’ve got an estimate today, I don’t know that there’s anybody who would say that’s realistic for what we expect it to be when they hand it to us in three or four years,” Beller said.
McKinney is expected to handle the final design and construction of the park once the bridge is built by TxDOT. The total cost is currently estimated between $40 million-$45 million, according to the staff presentation.
The city’s portion of the project is expected to cost $31.2 million, which will be mostly funded by grants from the North Central Texas Council of Governments and the Federal Highway Administration. The city is currently expected to commit $3.35 million in local dollars to the project.
Graham said other funding avenues would be available such as the NCTCOG. If those avenues failed however, it would fall back on the city, he said.
Council member Michael Jones said the biggest concern about the project was safety. He said the city could do a better job explaining how they could make the deck park safe.
“To me, there’s no plan and that’s the only thing I think citizens care about,” he said. “This is going to bring X so how do we solve for X?”
Graham said it was a great point but a plan hasn’t been advanced yet because they were still about two years from construction.
“The idea on the July 30 public meeting is to get that input from the public now and start influencing what it will look like, that final design, in a couple of years,” he said. “But you’re exactly right. That is a big hurdle we’ve been trying to identify.”
