If you have walked Wydown Boulevard toward Forest Park at any point in the last seventeen months, you have probably asked yourself when the median will look like itself again. City documents give two answers. New street trees across Clayton are scheduled to start going in this November. The trees for the half-mile of median that took the worst of the damage come later, under their own contract, in 2027.
That split shapes everything about the next year on Wydown. Once you know it, the order of the work makes sense.
The Half-Mile That Waits Its Turn
The EF-3 tornado that struck Clayton on May 16, 2025, hit the east end of Wydown especially hard. The City described "a concentration of public damage" along that end of the boulevard, with street trees and lighting lost. In a photo caption dated Nov. 4, 2025, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch showed a large stump in the 6300 block and reported that the storm had snapped dozens of trees along the street and destroyed a decades-old canopy.
The City has written a precise boundary around that section. Its design solicitation describes "the 40' wide landscaped median along Wydown Boulevard from University Avenue to the eastern City Limits," about half a mile long. This stretch is handled as its own project, apart from the rest of the city's replanting.
The City's own tree plan spells out the separation. The May 7, 2026 planting plan, which lists every planned replacement tree by address and species, says: "Trees in the Wydown median, east of University, are excluded and will be planted under a separate contract in 2027."
Everything else on that list moves sooner.
What Goes in the Ground First
The citywide program covers 595 replacement trees on common ground, medians and the tree lawns beside homes, not counting the east Wydown median. The City's one-year tornado recovery update spreads the work over three years:
Planting year | Trees scheduled |
|---|---|
2027 | 227 |
2028 | 209 |
2029 | 159 |
Total | 595 |
The 2027 label is a little misleading. According to the planting plan, Year 1 planting is expected to run from November 2026 through March 2027, and Years 2 and 3 will follow a similar seasonal pattern. The City has awarded the contract, and the recovery update says planting begins in late 2026. The cost is listed at $278,000.
The City Forester chose the species for each location, with "careful attention to diversity and long-term canopy health." Wydown Boulevard appears on the list many times. Some entries are tree lawn trees at homes in the 6300 through 6500 blocks, and others are tagged as median plantings. The median-tagged rows at the 6500 block alone account for 32 trees. The mix there includes:
- Five dawn redwoods and nine eastern hemlocks
- Three ginkgos and three southern magnolias
- Three white oaks, plus one each of cherrybark, chinkapin and Nuttall oak
- Two yellowwoods, a katsura, a Kentucky coffeetree, a Miyabe maple and a Frontier elm
The 6600 block's median rows add 12 more trees, including seven ginkgos, a Kwanzan cherry, a Japanese snowbell, a chinkapin oak and a swamp chestnut oak. Farther west, the list places a dawn redwood at 7400, a southern magnolia at 7436 and seven eastern hemlocks across 7460, 7504, 7506 and 7514.
Because the plan excludes the east-of-University median, none of these entries should be read as that stretch's planting schedule. The document doesn't say which numbered addresses fall on which side of University. What it does show is Wydown getting a deliberately varied canopy rather than a single repeated species.
Why the Median Will Look Familiar
The east median could have turned out quite differently. In the fall of 2025, the City put concept designs in front of residents on Engage Clayton and ran a feedback survey, which has since closed. The concept deck, dated October 27, 2025, was organized around a theme called "Nature at Your Door." One alternative paired full tree replanting with oval beds of native plants and a focal art piece. Another added integrated landscape art and prairie pockets. The City also held a town hall on the restoration on October 27, 2025.
In January 2026, the City Council approved Concept 1, "Replanting," covering median trees and street trees drawn from a comprehensive tree and plant list. The design solicitation that followed made the goal explicit: "restoration of the median to its pre-tornado condition," with trees, irrigation, landscaping, lighting, turf and related streetscape elements.
That choice fits how the City describes the boulevard. Engage Clayton calls Wydown a recreation route for "walking, biking, and nature enthusiasts," a gateway to the city and a direct link to Forest Park, "frequently referenced for the character and beauty of mature trees and seasonal plantings." Clayton chose to rebuild that character as it was.
Design work has been underway since spring. On April 28, 2026, the City Council approved a professional design services agreement with LJC Design and Engineering. Nine firms had submitted qualifications, and staff ranked LJC highest after evaluation and interviews.
What Happens at City Hall on October 14
The project is now out for construction bids. Under RFP 2026.PW.41.080, the City is accepting sealed bids for the Wydown Boulevard Median Restoration until 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 14, 2026. The bids will be "publicly opened and read aloud immediately following" in the City Council Chambers on the second floor of City Hall, 10 N. Bemiston Avenue. An optional pre-bid meeting was held there on October 5.
The bid notice lists the full scope:
"site demolition and removals, protection of existing trees and improvements, grading and soil preparation, planting, turf, irrigation, site lighting, concrete and site furnishings, and related work required for a complete installation."
That one package explains why the median's published timeline has moved. The one-year recovery update split the median work into two phases: street lighting from August through October 2026, then trees, plants and irrigation from September 2026 through June 2027, at an estimated $1.7 million. The construction bid that went out on September 23 rolls site lighting into the same contract as the planting. That bid closes after the lighting window was supposed to be half over. No contractor has been named and no revised completion date has been published. The City also reserves the right to accept or reject any bid.
Two other details in the notice affect the pace. The project must meet federal FEMA contracting requirements, including documentation and flow-down provisions for subcontractors, and workers must be paid Missouri's prevailing wage rates. Lighting and irrigation are eligible for FEMA reimbursement. This is a federally funded rebuild with the paperwork that comes with it.
The median work also overlaps with two related efforts. The public irrigation system along Wydown, from University Drive to the city limits, is being fully replaced as part of the restoration, at an estimated $329,000. Separately, the citywide streetlight replacement covers roughly 150 to 170 damaged poles and fixtures across nine circuits. It is coordinated with the Wydown project, with construction planned from August 2026 through March 2027. Those lights "will be replaced in kind and type," at an estimated $2.3 million.
How the Next Year on Wydown Is Likely to Unfold
Put the documents side by side, and the order of work for the next twelve months looks like this:
- October 14, 2026. Construction bids for the east median are opened and read aloud at City Hall.
- November 2026 through March 2027. Year 1 of the citywide tree replanting, including street trees and median trees on Wydown outside the east-of-University section.
- Through March 2027. The planned window for citywide streetlight replacement, coordinated with the median project.
- 2027. Trees go into the east Wydown median under the separate contract.
- 2028 and 2029. Years 2 and 3 of citywide replanting, 209 and 159 trees respectively.
So the half-mile of median nearest Forest Park is likely to be among the last parts of Wydown to be replanted. The planting plan itself says timing depends on "contractor scheduling, seasonal conditions, and other factors." None of the materials reviewed for this post mention any closure or detour on the median's walking path.
Some of the cleanup is already finished. Arborists marked 186 trees across Clayton for removal, and all have been taken down. All 468 trees that needed pruning have been pruned. City staff removed 207 stumps, and a contract to remove 370 more was expected to finish by September 30, 2026. The City puts the total cost of tornado recovery across all projects at about $12.6 million. Once stumps are cleared and bids are opened, the next phase is new trees in the ground.
If you live along Wydown, or you are weighing a home whose view or daily walk depends on that median, the bid results and the 2027 planting schedule are worth following. I'm glad to share what I learn as the City posts updates, or to talk through how this stretch of Clayton is changing. You can reach me through Alison Sheehan. Let's Connect.
