At its October 13 meeting, Clayton's City Council took up an item it had never needed before. It approved a plan to light Halloween. Staff had looked at bringing in 30 to 35 portable light towers. Each one lights about half an acre, and staff estimated the cost at roughly $13,650, with a ceiling of $15,000. The council chose a smaller plan instead. It voted 7-0 for 15 propane-powered light systems, about $7,000 in total, placed at intersections that have no lighting and running until 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 31.
The reason for the vote is in the October 13 council minutes, in City Manager Gipson's report:
"tornado damage has left portions of the Moorlands neighborhood and Wydown Boulevard without functioning streetlights."
That was 17 months after the May 16, 2025 tornado. Most visible cleanup finished long ago. Crews replaced all 210 damaged sidewalk panels and all 70 damaged or missing street signs. They removed 186 trees and pruned 468 more. The lights are on a different track. The city is coordinating the streetlight replacement with the Wydown median restoration, and the median contract, which carries its own lighting phase, was only bid in October.
The lights are coordinated with the median
The city's tornado recovery update lists the storm-damaged streetlights as their own project. About 150 to 170 poles and fixtures across nine circuits were damaged. They will be replaced "in kind and type" at an estimated cost of $2.3 million, with construction planned from August 2026 through March 2027. The same page says the streetlight work "is being coordinated with the Wydown Median Restoration project."
The median restoration is a $1.7 million project in two phases. Phase 1, the street lighting, was scheduled for August through October 2026. Phase 2 covers trees, plants and irrigation and runs from September 2026 through June 2027. Lighting comes first in that order, so the median's own lighting depends on its construction contract.
That contract was only recently put out to bid. The city's invitation to bid, number 2026.PW.41.080, went out September 23. An optional pre-bid meeting took place October 5, and sealed bids were opened in City Hall Council Chambers at 2:00 p.m. on October 14. The scope lists site lighting together with the planting, turf and irrigation. The project also carries federal FEMA contracting requirements, including certifications, recordkeeping and flow-down terms for subcontractors. Those terms are part of what makes the lighting and irrigation eligible for FEMA reimbursement.
The median's Phase 1 lighting window ran through October, and bids for the work that includes that lighting were opened halfway through the month. The October 27 council agenda listed no award for either the median contract or a streetlight contract. The Halloween lights covered a gap while both contracts were still waiting on awards.
Rebuilt as it was
Before seeking a designer, the city weighed three ways to restore the median. Its request for design qualifications says the city chose to return the median "to its pre-tornado condition," with new trees, irrigation, landscaping, lighting and turf "consistent with the original design intent." The project covers a median 40 feet wide and half a mile long, running from University to Clayton's eastern city limit.
The same document leaves some room to add to that baseline. It asks for under-canopy and supplemental planting, sustainable planting practices, and a design flexible enough to add features "such as art" at select spots later.
Wydown has a long history of public use, which helps explain the choice to restore rather than redesign. The American Planning Association's profile of Wydown Boulevard records that the first streetcar ran along today's median in 1895. The median became a footpath when the trolley line gave way to bus service in 1949. The neighborhoods along it are just as old. APA lists subdivisions platted in 1910, 1911 and 1913, and Carrswold in 1924. The median has served as a path for more than 75 years, and the plan rebuilds it as one.
What the median contract covers
The bid documents list the work in roughly the order a crew would do it:
- Site demolition and removals
- Protection of existing trees and improvements
- Grading and soil preparation
- Planting and turf
- Irrigation
- Site lighting
- Concrete and site furnishings
Protecting existing trees appears near the top of the list. Construction has to work around the trees that survived the storm. The irrigation item reaches farther than the median. The city plans to replace the entire public irrigation system along Wydown from University Drive to the city limits, at an estimated $329,000. The recovery page gives two end dates for that work. Its project description says August 2026 through June 2027, and its summary table says March 2027.
Across all recovery work, the city puts the total cost at about $12.6 million and is pursuing FEMA reimbursement for eligible items. The streetlights and the median together account for about $4 million of that total.
Street trees run on their own schedule
The median's trees have their own schedule, separate from the rest of the city's. Everywhere else, Clayton has identified 595 trees for replanting. The City Forester chose the species for each location with an eye to diversity and long-term canopy health. The $278,000 contract has been awarded, and the recovery page says planting begins in November 2026.
| Planting year | Trees |
|---|---|
| 2027 | 227 |
| 2028 | 209 |
| 2029 | 159 |
| Total | 595 |
The city's tree planting solicitation explains how a November 2026 start lines up with those year labels. It frames the work as FY27 through FY29 tornado restoration planting, done each year from November through March. The first planting season under the 2027 label opens in November 2026.
Some numbers help with scale. The storm took 186 trees, and 627 stumps were scheduled for removal, with the contracted portion due by September 30, 2026. The 595 replacements are planned over three winters, and they do not include the trees inside the Wydown median, which are handled separately.
Many of those plantings will go in front of homes. Clayton's Forestry Division manages trees in the public right-of-way. That includes medians and the planting strip between the sidewalk and the curb. Homeowners who want extra work done on a right-of-way tree can hire one of the licensed firms the city lists, at their own expense, and the city requires a right-of-way permit for that work. This is general information, not legal advice. Anyone planning work in the right-of-way should confirm the current requirements with the city first.
The nearest dates on the calendar
The city has published a schedule but not yet a contractor for the boulevard itself. Next on the list are the bid award, the start of Phase 1 lighting, and the November opening of the citywide planting season. Under the recovery plan, streetlight construction runs through March 2027 and the median's trees, plants and irrigation through June 2027.
The next neighborhood gathering is closer than any of those milestones. The Ward 3 Neighborhood Block Party is Thursday, November 12, from 5 to 7 p.m. at Taylor Park, 222 N. Central Ave., under the theme "Fallin' For Our Neighborhood: An Apple Orchard Block Party." Downtown has a new stop too. St. Louis Magazine reported that Sylvie Dee's held its grand opening at 8115 Maryland Ave. on October 3, serving ice cream, candy, coffee, soda-fountain fare and pastries, open daily from 8 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Homeowners near Wydown and in the Moorlands may be weighing a sale or purchase while the boulevard is still being rebuilt. In that case, it helps to know which work is funded, scheduled and awarded, and which work is still pending. John Ryan and Talena Floyd follow Clayton's recovery block by block and can talk through how the restoration timeline fits your own plans. Contact Us.
