The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center plans to expand to accommodate future growth, the center announced Sept. 25.
The center will work with Lake Flato, an architecture firm based in Austin and San Antonio, and Studio Outside, a landscape architecture company based in Dallas, according to a press release.
The center began gathering data to understand the necessary steps to meet the needs of the community, said Lee Clippard, executive director of the Wildflower Center. The center will finish creating the plan in June 2025.
“We are really excited to update our gardens with fresh designs and native planting displays to delight and educate our hundreds of thousands of guests and support the birds, bees and butterflies that call this place home,” Clippard said in an email.
The project will include an expansion in guest amenities and educational spaces, according to the press release. The center will determine the amount of money needed by June 2025, Clippard said.
“We would like to add new research facilities to support the Texas seed bank and other lab activities, and our growing educational programs need modern classrooms to serve both the public and UT Austin students and faculty,” Clippard said.
Studio Outside partner Tary Arterburn said transportation to the center is one of the main issues.
“We’re hopeful that the city will consider a bus route that will connect there,” Arterburn said. “There has been some discussion of a bus connection there for the public.”
Lake Flato partner Bob Harris said the plan will make the center’s trails more accessible in a variety of ways, including creating more signage and making the surface of the trails manageable for people of all ages.
“The Wildflower Center needs to be able to provide for (diverse) experiences in a way that is conducive to giving everybody an opportunity to access the environment there,” Harris said.
Lauren Wardwell, project leader for Studio Outside, said the group plans to get the Austin community’s opinion, including researchers and faculty at UT, on how to make improvements to the center with the expansion. The public listening sessions, where participants can give ideas, draw maps and leave notes for the developers, will start in 2025, Wardwell said.
“We work really hard to incorporate all of those ideas and thoughts into the final design,” Wardwell said.
