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Construction crews are building retaining walls and structural supports along the Brazos River near I-35 for Baylor University’s Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion.

Construction crews are building retaining walls and structural supports along the Brazos River near I-35 for Baylor University's Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion.

Construction crews are building retaining walls and structural supports along the Brazos River near I-35 for Baylor University’s Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion.

Construction crews are building retaining walls and structural supports along the Brazos River near I-35 for Baylor University’s Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion.

Construction crews are building retaining walls and structural supports along the Brazos River near I-35 for Baylor University’s Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion.

Construction crews are building retaining walls and structural supports along the Brazos River near I-35 for Baylor University’s Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion.

Baylor University’s new basketball arena is on track for an early opening in January 2024, while Waco officials are still deciding which luxury hotel to build right next door.

At first glance, the site of a former parking garage behind Clifton Robinson Tower is still mostly mud, heavy equipment and piles of gravel, but important structural work is underway, Baylor spokesperson Lori Fogleman said. Workers are drilling deep underground and injecting concrete to create auger cast piles, and building retaining walls along the riverbank.

Fogleman said the university is still actively fundraising for the $213 million Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion. She said workers started preparing the site for construction in mid-April and gained more access to the site as a nearby city sewer line project progressed along University Parks Drive, which remains closed.

Crews are at work in the site cleared out behind Baylor’s Clifton Robinson Tower, laying the groundwork for the university’s new basketball arena.

The arena project is just one of several interlocking projects developing along the western side of the Brazos River between Interstate 35 and Franklin Avenue. Much of the work is part of Catalyst Urban Development’s mixed-use Riverfront development, which will span several blocks and bring apartments, two restaurants, shopping and a revamp of the riverwalk.

Baylor University is building its basketball arena west of the interstate and behind Clifton Robinson Tower at I-35 and University Parks Drive. The city of Waco plans to build a 435-car parking garage connected to a boutique hotel on the same block as the arena.

Waco City Council awarded a $914,000 contract in July to Austin Commercial LP for the parking garage, but has not yet chosen a firm to build and operate the hotel.

Waco City Manager Bradley Ford said an overhaul of the riverwalk is being designed along with the parking garage.

Ford said city staff will present an update on the hotel to the city council sometime in the next month or two.

“We’re still negotiating through who the hotel partner is going to be and how it’s going to be structured,” Ford said. “The proposals we received were all full service, top of the line proposals. … It will be the nicest hotel in Waco for sure.”

Ford said the riverfront site is special and warrants a luxury hotel.

“The quality just needs to be really, really high, and the proposals we got, I’d say, exceeded our expectations,” Ford said.

Construction crews are building retaining walls and structural supports along the Brazos River near I-35 for Baylor University’s Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion.

He said the parking garage project will start first because the city signed a contract with Baylor stating it will be done by 2024. Work on the riverwalk is expected to last into 2025, in part because of permitting that will be required with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Last year, Waco City Council approved a $497,000 contract with Kimley-Horn and Associates to help design the parking garage and establish a parking authority that will manage parking, though the scope of the authority’s role has not been decided.

The consultant firm will also collect data about pedestrian traffic and parking in downtown and how planned redevelopment will affect both, then advise Baylor and Catalyst Urban Development during development of their projects.

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Rhiannon Saegert is a graduate of the University of North Texas who formerly worked at The Ardmoreite in Ardmore, Okla., the Denton Record-Chronicle and Eater magazine.

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Construction crews are building retaining walls and structural supports along the Brazos River near I-35 for Baylor University’s Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion.

Crews are at work in the site cleared out behind Baylor’s Clifton Robinson Tower, laying the groundwork for the university’s new basketball arena.

Construction crews are building retaining walls and structural supports along the Brazos River near I-35 for Baylor University's Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion.

Construction crews are building retaining walls and structural supports along the Brazos River near I-35 for Baylor University’s Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion.

Construction crews are building retaining walls and structural supports along the Brazos River near I-35 for Baylor University’s Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion.

Construction crews are building retaining walls and structural supports along the Brazos River near I-35 for Baylor University’s Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion.

Construction crews are building retaining walls and structural supports along the Brazos River near I-35 for Baylor University’s Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion.

Construction crews are building retaining walls and structural supports along the Brazos River near I-35 for Baylor University’s Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion.

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