Bonnie Brae project hits halfway mark

The third and sixth phases of the Bonnie Brae Street updates are currently under construction. The third phase stretches from Roselawn Drive to I-35E and passes by the University of North Texas’ athletics center and DATCU Stadium, UNT’s football stadium.

Cameron Wilson, UNT’s senior associate athletic director, said the center’s main entrance off Bonnie Brae was closed for several months for construction.

Crews worked on the northbound lanes from January 2025 to mid-July 2025 and reopened Bonnie Brae Street before the school’s first football game, city officials said. The school opened an internal road to the public and for staff to get to work during the time Bonnie Brae was completely closed by the stadium.

Wilson said city staff and the construction company working on Bonnie Brae, Sundt, worked with the school to halt road work and avoid closures during athletic events.

“They’ve been good about working with UNT Athletics and our schedule of events to minimize or eliminate conflicts," Wilson said.

Bonnie Brae is now open by the stadium with one northbound and one southbound lane while crews continue work, Wilson said.

Zooming in

The sixth phase covers Bonnie Brae Street from West University Drive to US 77 and passes by Denton High School’s entrance. The added lanes will alleviate traffic during peak hours near the high school, and the phase will include a traffic light at Riney Road and Bronco Way to better direct traffic, Garcia said.

Ankur Uthra, a resident of the King’s Ridge neighborhood off Bonnie Brae where the sixth phase of the project is taking place, said construc tion has not added too much to the commute to and from his house.

“The only thing is the inconvenient [added] time, which would be just a minute or two, not more than that,” he said.

Uthra said he hears construction noise throughout the day, but believes the project is justified due to the city’s growth.

“I think once the project is completed, it is going to be amazing. Right now, it takes a lot of time to use Bonnie Brae because it gets congested,” Uthra said. “The population has increased recently here... In my neighborhood in the last two years, there have been a lot of apartments and houses newly built.”

Yardley Elm, a 316-unit apartment complex near King’s Ridge and Bonnie Brae, opened in December 2024, a company representative said. Perch Denton, a rental home community just south of King’s Ridge, completed construction in April 2024.

By the numbers

Several funding sources are financing the project, including North Texas Tollway Authority toll revenue, city of Denton bonds, the North Central Texas Council of Governments and funds from the 2008 and 2022 Transportation Road Improvement Program bond packages, Garcia said.

“We saw significant markups on materials and lead times. Construction also continued to rapidly grow in DFW, which raised prices,” Garcia said.

Work in April will have construction crews installing sidewalks and developing road foundations near the Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railroad tracks along Bonnie Brae Street as part of the project’s third phase, which is scheduled to complete in September. The sixth phase is expected to be finished in April 2027, with crews paving during the next seven months after completing underground work like installing drainage infrastructure and leveling the ground, Garcia said.

The Texas Department of Transportation is managing the designs for the seventh phase and it approved the schematic in February. The environmental clearance, where officials ensure construction complies with environmental laws, is scheduled for October, TxDOT documents state. The phase will extend Bonnie Brae a quarter mile from US 77 and connect to Loop 288, according to TxDOT documents.

Phases 4B and 5 have not yet received funding. Council documents show the 4B phase was delayed in September 2023 after council decided to move $2.8 million from 4B to the third phase to meet higher-than-expected costs. Funding allocation to 4B is tentatively scheduled for the city’s 2028 budget, but there’s no guarantee it will receive funding at that time, Garcia said. The fifth phase is tentatively scheduled for the 2031 budget.

“It can easily move back up with council priorities and decisions,” Garcia said. “It gets measured with all other city priorities for its general fund.”