Denison council approves $89,500 Main Street landscaping contract

The Denison City Council voted unanimously July 13 to hire North Texas Tree Experts for landscape upkeep along parts of Main Street, approving an agreement capped at $89,500, according to the council's meeting packet and the video recording of the session. The contract cleared as part of the consent agenda, which the council adopted in a single unanimous vote.

The packet identified the deal as the Main Street Landscape Maintenance Program Agreement and named North Texas Tree Experts as the recommended contractor for the city's 2026 work. Staff set the ceiling at an amount not to exceed $89,500 and described the scope as ongoing care of planting beds and trees, along with irrigation, pruning, bed upkeep, debris removal and appearance management on Main Street.

City staff tied the agreement to Designing Downtown Denison, the streetscape program the city shortens to D3. According to the packet, the contract covers new planting beds and areas within the D3 Phase 1 and Phase 2 project zones, plus adjoining sections of Main Street.

In the same July 13 packet, Denison Main Street staff described D3 Phase 2 as about two months from substantial completion.

Phase 2 has been under way for more than two years. The city's D3 project page dates the start to May 6, 2024 and puts the work across the 300 and 400 blocks of Main Street, the intersection of Main and Fannin, Heritage Park, and the alleys on both sides of Main Street. The city estimated the full build would take about 24 months.

Earlier records set the price of that construction. Denison's March 18, 2024 council packet listed a guaranteed maximum price of $23,320,171 for D3 Phase 2, with Piazza Construction as the contractor. That figure belongs to the construction phase and is separate from the July 13 landscaping agreement.

Denison is not the only city in the area spending on its downtown, though nearby Sherman took a different route. Records from that city show its April 21, 2025 council packet proposed a $149,080 professional-services contract for the second phase of the Downtown Sherman Corridor Development Project, centered on a downtown strategic plan and corridor design work rather than landscape maintenance.

With the agreement approved, the planting beds and street trees along Main Street have a named contractor for upkeep as the D3 crews work toward finishing Phase 2.