Smith County and City of Tyler Officials joined together Friday, August 29, 2025, to celebrate the groundbreaking of the Downtown Improvement Project.

More than 100 people attended the event on the county's square.

This project is the result of a strong partnership between the City of Tyler and Smith County. Over the next three years, the City of Tyler will invest $25.6 million to turn Downtown Tyler into a more livable, vibrant and pedestrian-friendly community.   

The project will be going on at the same time as the county’s courthouse construction project.

“We’re breaking ground today for a major project for the city of Tyler, which includes infrastructure like drainage, streets, water, sewer, traffic flow,” Smith County Judge Neal Franklin. “All of this represents much more. It represents a future destination, a place where family and business colleagues can gather. It is a future for business entrepreneurs to build and live out their dreams; a place for our citizens to eat and enjoy planned activities or to just spread a blanket out on future green space and relax.”

Franklin said he truly believes that collaboration is the key to our future.

“This square is a great example,” he said, referring to the county and city working together to make the project possible.

“When we invest in Downtown Tyler, we invest in every neighborhood, every family, and every visitor who calls this place home,” Mayor Don Warren said. 

For years, county and city leaders have gone over the plans for the newly imagined Downtown Square, which will feature seating areas, public restrooms, a small food truck park and ample green space for the community to gather. All streets around the square will be converted into two-way streets, and roundabouts will be installed at the intersections of Broadway Avenue with Erwin Street and Ferguson Street to improve traffic flow. Major infrastructure updates will also modernize downtown's water, sewer and stormwater systems to accommodate future growth. 

“The future of Downtown Tyler starts right here, with this groundbreaking and the collaboration that made it possible,” Franklin said.

Smith County kicked off the improvements to downtown in 2024, by opening the more than 500-space parking garage on Ferguson Street and beginning construction of the new courthouse, which is expected to be completed in the fall of 2026.

On Tuesday, September 2, the T.B. Butler Fountain Plaza area, also known as the square, will be fenced off for the city’s construction project to begin.

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