Walk the ground floor of the parking garage next to Foster Pavilion today and you'll pass a stretch of finished concrete and bare studs that's sat empty since the garage was completed in the spring of 2024, just a few months after the arena itself opened in January 2024. Ask anyone who's tailgated a Baylor game there and they'll tell you the same thing: once tip-off hits, if you want a beer, you're leaving the building. Foster Pavilion pours alcohol during select concerts but not during Baylor sporting events, according to KWTX's reporting on the arena's policy. For two years, that's meant a several-block walk for anyone who wants a drink before or after watching the Bears play.
That gap is exactly what the city says it was trying to close when it picked a tenant for that blank first floor. On April 21, 2026, the Waco City Council approved a 15-year lease with Manhattan Project Beer Co., a Dallas-based brewery, to fill roughly half of the garage's ground-floor retail space at 600 S. University Parks Drive. Mayor Jim Holmes framed the logic to KXXV this way: the space needed to work "regardless there's a game going on or not," for residents who just want a reason to spend an evening on that part of the river.
What's Actually Moving Into That Blank Wall
The lease covers 10,260 square feet, and Manhattan Project plans to bring the same format it runs in Dallas: a brewery producing its own beer on site, a taproom, a full kitchen serving food throughout the day, a coffee bar, and outdoor patio seating. That's a wider footprint than a typical bar-and-grill tenant. It's a working brewery, which means Waco gets beer brewed in that building, not just poured there.
The target opening is May 2027, a little over a year out from the lease approval. That timeline reflects the amount of build-out ahead. The city is putting up to $2.49 million into finishing the space, which right now sits at "white box" condition, meaning basic HVAC, lighting, and a finished bathroom, but not much else.
Here's the arrangement at a glance:
| Detail | Figure |
|---|---|
| Lease term | 15 years, with two 5-year renewal options |
| Leased space | 10,260 sq. ft. at 600 S. University Parks Drive |
| City investment in build-out | Up to $2.49 million |
| Projected annual rent to the city | $241,711 |
| Total lease revenue projected | $3.63 million over 15 years |
| Target opening | May 2027 |
Why the Wall Stayed Blank This Long
It's tempting to read two years of empty retail space as a stalled project. The numbers say otherwise. Mayor Holmes told reporters the garage went up "kind of quick" alongside the arena, and the city always knew the first floor would need a second pass to finish it out. That second pass required finding a tenant willing to commit to a 15-year term, plus two five-year options that could stretch the relationship past 2050. City Manager Ryan Holt said Manhattan Project stood out during the selection process as a brand that could function as its own destination for Wacoans, separate from whatever's happening at the arena that night.
The city expects to recoup its buildout investment within nine years of the lease, meaning the back six years of the initial term, plus any renewals, are projected profit on top of a space that generated zero rent for two years. That's the calculation behind the wait: a short-term tenant would have filled the space faster but wouldn't have justified nearly $2.5 million in improvements.
The Corridor Already Has a Crowd Showing Up
The brewery isn't stepping into an empty calendar. Foster Pavilion's event schedule for the back half of 2026 alone includes Old Dominion on September 18, timed to Baylor's Family Weekend, and Braxton Keith on October 2. A few weeks after that, Magnolia's Silobration returns October 22 through 25, with organizers projecting their largest turnout yet, more than 100 vendors, and headliners including Mt. Joy, The Fray, Dylan Gossett, and Cory Asbury.
Baylor Athletics has also been testing the plaza itself as a gathering spot outside of ticketed events. This summer, the university partnered with the city's Parks and Recreation department on Summer on Turner Plaza, a free family series held on the plaza in front of the arena every Thursday night in July, complete with food trucks, bounce houses, and live music. That's a university and a city both betting that people will show up to that specific patch of concrete even when there's no game to watch.
None of that traffic depends on Manhattan Project opening on schedule. It's already happening. What changes once the taproom opens is that the crowd walking past on concert nights, football weekends, and July Thursdays finally has somewhere to stop that isn't tied to a ticket.
What This Actually Changes on a Random Tuesday
The nearby options for a bite or a drink close to Foster Pavilion right now, places like J-Petal and Poke, Huaco Lounge, and Olive Branch bistro, cater well to arena crowds on event nights but weren't built around the idea of daily foot traffic from the riverwalk itself. Manhattan Project's Dallas location runs a kitchen serving food throughout the day, not just during rushes tied to a show or a game. If the Waco taproom mirrors that model, it becomes something the existing options near the arena aren't quite built to be: a place you'd walk to on an ordinary weeknight, independent of anything happening inside Foster Pavilion.
The 15-year commitment backs that up. A short lease would have signaled a concept built to catch overflow from game nights and Silobration weekends. A term that can stretch past two decades with renewals is a bet on year-round, day-to-day use, which lines up with the coffee bar addition. Coffee service isn't a game-night amenity. It's a signal the space is meant to function in the morning and afternoon, not just after 6 p.m. on event days.
The location itself does some of the work too. Foster Pavilion sits directly on Waco's Brazos Riverwalk, the 5.5-mile lighted path connecting Baylor's campus to Cameron Park. Anyone already using that trail for a run or an evening walk will pass directly by the new taproom's outdoor patio once it opens, whether or not there's anything on the Pavilion schedule that night.
What to Watch For Between Now and May 2027
The buildout is the part worth tracking if you're in this part of downtown regularly. A white-box shell turning into a working brewery involves brewing equipment installation, kitchen buildout, and patio construction, all of which will be visible from University Parks Drive as they happen. Given the target date, expect visible construction activity to pick up through 2026 and into early 2027.
In the meantime, the existing rhythm holds. Concerts and Baylor games will keep drawing crowds to Turner Plaza through the fall, and the riverwalk will keep functioning as it always has for anyone walking or biking that stretch. The difference next May is that the same walk will end somewhere new.
If you're the kind of person who tracks how downtown Waco's riverfront keeps filling in one lease at a time, that's exactly the kind of pattern our team at Kelly Realtors Commercial follows for a living, just from the other side of the deal. Let's Get Started.
