Lost Creek's biggest construction project this season is the set of stairs residents take down to Barton Creek.
The Lost Creek Limited District is replacing all five stairway access points to the interior Lost Creek Greenbelt. The original limestone staircases are being demolished and rebuilt with stone steps, handrails and a lot of native planting to hold the soil in place. The District's project announcement says the board committed several years ago to fixing access and safety problems with the old staircases, and that it went through a years-long planning process before it could fund the work.
What sets this apart from an ordinary trail repair is who pays for it and when it happens. Lost Creek is paying from its own reserve fund, and the schedule runs straight through the months when the neighborhood's own calendar sends people to those trailheads.
Where the crews are working
The District groups the five entrances into three sites along the greenbelt's interior crossings:
- Site 1: both sides of the Whitemarsh Valley Walk crossing near Ben Crenshaw
- Site 2: both sides of the Augusta National crossing
- Site 3: Whitemarsh Valley Walk, near Indian Canyon
The announcement set the start at Site 1 for as early as Monday, September 21, 2026, and gave that site a maximum of 90 days. Sites 2 and 3 come next, and the full project has a total completion time of 150 days. Counting from that start date, Site 1's 90 days end around December 20, and the full 150 days run to mid-February 2027. The District says it will keep trail closures as short and limited as it can, but some will be needed for safety, and it will send updates as needed.
At the board's September 15 meeting, General Manager Jim Emmons reported that he had scheduled a preconstruction meeting with the contractor, and the board discussed how to tell residents about trail closures. The announcement directs questions to Jim Emmons at 512-327-6243, so that call is the quickest way to find out which stairway is closed before you head out.
What the bid sheet shows about the five entrances
The District opened bids for project 26-001, "Lost Creek Greenbelt Entries," on July 6, 2026. Three contractors bid, and their grand totals ranged from $318,278.39 to $555,700. On July 21, the board voted 4-0 to award the contract to Maas Verde for all greenbelt entry areas and all alternate bid items.
Maas Verde Landscape's prices for each entry show that the five stairways are very different jobs:
| Entry on the bid sheet | Maas Verde Landscape bid | Share of base bid |
|---|---|---|
| Greenbelt Entry A | $148,312.49 | about 47% |
| Greenbelt Entry B | $36,214.70 | about 11% |
| Greenbelt Entry C | $72,824.09 | about 23% |
| Greenbelt Entry D | $33,451.72 | about 11% |
| Greenbelt Entry E | $27,475.39 | about 9% |
| Base total | $318,278.39 |
Entry A costs more than Entries B, D and E put together. The bid sheet uses letters and the announcement uses site numbers, and the documents don't say which letter goes with which crossing. The spread still shows that the rebuild is a set of five separate construction jobs of very different sizes, not one standard staircase built five times.
Maas Verde was not the lowest bidder on every entry. Salas Service Group came in lower on Entry A at $129,765. Maas Verde had the lowest grand total, with Salas Service Group at $330,548.50 and G. Creek Construction Restoration at $555,700.
The planting is a separate line item
The alternates the board approved are almost all planting. Each entry gets Texas sedge, and Entries D and E also get landscape boulders. Maas Verde priced them at $5,083 for Entry A, $391 for Entry B, $1,173 for Entry C, $4,045.60 for Entry D and $5,677.40 for Entry E. That adds $16,370 to the base bid, for a combined figure of about $334,648 once the base and all five alternates are added together.
The District's announcement lists native plants as one of the two defining features of the new trailheads, "used extensively to enhance beauty and prevent excessive erosion." The sedge and boulders on the bid sheet are the planting part of that plan, priced entry by entry.
How the neighborhood is paying for it
Lost Creek has its own small taxing entity. At the September 15 meeting, the Limited District board adopted a final 2026 tax rate of $0.035537 per $100 of assessed valuation and approved its Fiscal Year 2027 budget, both by 5-0 votes. According to the District's announcement, keeping up community parks and greenbelts is one of its core functions, and it presents the stair project as the result of "careful stewardship of your tax dollars."
The capital projects schedule in the September board packet shows the money coming from the District's repair-and-replacement reserve. "Greenbelt Stairs" is budgeted at $87,500 a month for four straight months. That reserve starts the schedule at $520,501 and drops to $155,501 after the fourth stair payment. A $15,000 playground mulch line and a $3,500 line for board room tables come out of the same fund. The stair line totals $350,000, or roughly two of every three dollars in that fund when the schedule begins.
That makes these stairways one of the largest items Lost Creek has paid for together. They will also be one of the most used, since they connect the neighborhood's streets to the creek. Our earlier field guide to late-summer greenbelt days in Lost Creek covers how residents use that connection.
Where the construction meets the winter calendar
The 150-day window covers the season when the District's own calendar sends residents to the greenbelt trailheads. Here's how the dates line up, drawing on the board packets and the District's Fall Updates newsletter:
- Friday, November 20: In September, the District board approved the Lost Creek Moms Club's Movie Under the Stars, a large group event at Boulder Park.
- October through January: The District's Fall Update calls this the best time to prune oak trees to guard against the spread of oak wilt, and it links to texasoakwilt.org.
- Around December 20: Site 1's 90-day maximum ends, counted from the announced September 21 start.
- Saturday, January 23, 8 a.m. to noon, and Sunday, January 24, noon to 4 p.m.: Chipper Weekend. The District asks residents to bring cut brush and limbs to the Lost Creek Greenbelt trailhead on Whitemarsh Valley Walk, near Indian Canyon Drive.
- Mid-February 2027: The full 150-day project window ends.
The Chipper Weekend drop-off on Whitemarsh Valley Walk near Indian Canyon is also Site 3 on the stair project, which is scheduled to follow Site 1. Anyone planning a January brush haul should check with the District office before loading the truck. Its newsletter ties those collections to the District's Firewise program, which coordinates residents' brush removal with the District's own work.
The board that decides the next phase is changing
The same Fall Update said two of the five seats on the District board are vacant. The board planned to start considering resident volunteers at its November 17 meeting, and the deadline to express interest was November 10. The board meets at least monthly in the Lost Creek community building at 1305 Quaker Ridge Drive, and meetings are livestreamed.
The process of filling those two seats is starting while the stairs are still being built. The monthly agenda packets on lostcreekld.org are where the stair project shows up, as it did on the October 20 agenda, which also listed the impacts of the Overlook at Westlake development on the District.
By the end of the project window in mid-February, if the schedule holds, all five entrances will have stone steps with handrails where the original limestone staircases used to be, along with Texas sedge on every slope and boulders at two of the entries.
At Jenny Walker, we follow projects like this because they shape day-to-day life in Lost Creek, right down to which trailhead you use on a Saturday. With Jenny's builder background, we'll always talk through what goes into a staircase like this, from the stonework to the slope work. If you'd like a neighbor's take on what's changing around the greenbelt this winter, reach out anytime.
