What’s Happening With The Ranch Master Plan?
This summer, the 21-acre Event Lawn, one of the largest Master Plan projects by footprint, reached an exciting milestone. The space opened, and for the first time, the community is experiencing it during events at The Ranch.
Other Master Plan projects are at different points in their journeys.
Behind the scenes, several projects have been moving through planning, design, and evaluation simultaneously, with the Master Plan Project Team continuing to work on what it will take to build, operate, and use each space.
Answering those questions takes time and many people.
The Ranch is working alongside a broad group of engineers, specialty consultants, contractors, and partners who bring different expertise to the table, including Perkins&Will, our architecture and design firm partner, and Flintco, our general contractor.
Together, the Master Plan Project Team is working through the many factors that shape a project, including site conditions, budgets, infrastructure, operations, access, user needs, and how each space will function as part of the larger campus.
Ranch staff and community partners are a crucial part of that process, bringing firsthand knowledge that helps inform everything from how people move through a space to how it functions during an event, to accessibility, day-to-day operations, and the needs of those who will actually use it.
Even the site itself has a say. Existing utilities, roads, drainage, access, and the challenge of building on a campus that continues to host events all have to be accounted for, along with many other details that become clearer as work progresses.
The Event Lawn is one example of how that work can influence a project.
As plans for the 21-acre lawn developed, the team also had to account for how the space would be irrigated and how water would be managed on site. The detention pond became part of that solution, and excavating it produced approximately 148,000 cubic yards of material that could then be reused to help build the Event Lawn.
That is roughly 12,000 truckloads of material that did not have to be hauled off-site and replaced with material brought in from somewhere else.
That solution came from dozens of people evaluating options and working through details behind the scenes. It is the kind of work that can uncover better ways to use public funds before construction begins, whether that means reusing material already on site, avoiding unnecessary work, or finding a more practical approach.
The same kind of evaluation is happening across other Master Plan projects, each with its own questions, challenges, and people working behind the scenes.
So, what happens from here? Preconstruction will continue across several Master Plan projects. That includes the planning, design, and evaluation of different parts of each project as the Master Plan Project Team works through what will be needed to build, operate, and use those spaces successfully.
As we learn more, we will keep sharing the story of each project piece by piece, including the people, progress, and milestones that help shape the work along the way.
And while that work continues, The Ranch is here to be experienced. Come out, enjoy the new Event Lawn, attend an event, explore the campus, and create a new experience of your own while the next chapters of The Ranch continue to unfold.
Explore the Master Plan and follow what’s next at The Ranch.