Real Estate Photographer in Cedar Park, TX

Teams competing in the UIL boys soccer playoffs completed the area round on Wednesday, setting the stage for more intrigue as they make their way toward next month’s state championships in Georgetown.

Here are a few players from across the state who stood out and helped their teams advance.

5A Division II

Alex Gallimore – Midfielder/Defense - Cedar Park

Gallimore was named Soccer Player of the Match by the Cedar Park coaching staff after a 6-1 win over Harlandale in the Area round. He scored two goals in the win after not scoring all season.

Cedar Park faces Juarez-Lincoln at 8 p.m. on Friday in the regional semifinals.

Runyambo Muco – Striker – Terry

The sophomore, known to those within the program as “Mucho,” finished the regular season with a team-high 34 goals despite dealing with an early injury scare. He’s followed that with three goals and an assist in both playoff games, helping lead the Rangers in a 4-1 area round win over Georgetown.

“Mucho played like we know he can game in and game out,” head coach Drew Brenk said. “When Mucho is healthy and on his game, he can score at will. It has shown the previous two playoff games. He has scored six goals in two games. We had an injury scare early in the season with Mucho, but he is 100% now, and it is perfect timing for us.”

Terry plays Kingwood Park in the regional semifinals at 7 p.m. on Thursday.

4A Division II

Faizi Shaib – Forward – Fort Worth Diamond Hill-Jarvis

Although he has played sparingly, Shaib is another sophomore having an outstanding season. He has scored five goals in nine games during his first season on varsity and is second on the Eagles in assists per game at 0.8.

He added two goals and two assists (six points) in a 6-0 win over Gatesville as Diamond Hill-Jarvis advanced to the regional semifinals.

“In the past month, Faizi has taken his raw talent and turned it into production,” coach Kyle Reopelle said. “Last night, he showed how devastating he is in [one-on-one] situations as he was constantly creating goal-scoring opportunities for himself and his teammates. His relentless effort is paying off in the most important time of the season.”

The Eagles will face El Paso Bowie at 10 a.m. on Friday.

A vast majority of Cedar Park businesses have been expanding their operations, according to new data from the city of Cedar Park.

The city launched a tracking software to further its business retention and expansion efforts in July, said Daniel Sousa, the city's community affairs assistant director.

The overview

The city held business retention meetings with 75 companies during fiscal year 2024. From July to September, the city began collecting data from 24 of these companies using a new reporting platform.

The system found that 95% of these businesses were expanding while 5% were contracting.

Despite signs of slowed growth in the economy, the city’s largest business expansions are continuing to progress, said Chief Economic Development Officer Arthur Jackson at a Feb. 27 Cedar Park City Council meeting.

Cedar Park's economic development team may help businesses hire more employees or acquire additional square footage by securing state grants and funding, he said.

Diving deeper

The survey showed Cedar Park having a wide diversity of businesses, with the largest industry being IT businesses at 23%, followed by construction and advanced manufacturing companies, each at 17%.

Of the surveyed companies, 74% were small businesses with 1-49 employees. The city has several large companies employing well over 100 workers, including Firefly Aerospace and Hyliion, Jackson said.

Something to note

More Cedar Park companies were returning to in-person work as 71% of businesses said 0-25% of their workforce was working remotely, according to city data.

With office developments slated to come to Cedar Park, the city felt it was important to monitor how many companies were working remotely, Jackson said. Financing office developments has been more difficult amid high vacancy rates in Downtown Austin, he said.

“Having this data has really helped our team to show and build confidence with developers that office products here in Cedar Park can thrive and be successful,” Jackson said.

Education Reporter

Chloe is an education reporter covering Leander, Liberty Hill and Lake Travis ISDs. She joined Community Impact as reporter in May 2023 after graduating with a degree in journalism from The University of Texas. Chloe previously served as the Austin metro intern for CI in summer 2022 and has interned for KXAN-TV, KUT and Austin Woman. When she’s not writing, she enjoys spending time in nature, thrift shopping, reading and listening to live music. Her passion is engaging communities around hyperlocal coverage.

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Cedar Park City Council is considering making zoning changes that could bring a Trader Joe’s grocery store to the city.

Council held its first reading and public hearing related to the rezoning of a 7.79-acre lot at the southwest corner of East Whitestone Boulevard and Arrow Point Drive at a Feb. 27 meeting. The developer has made multiple modifications to the project amid hearing concerns from nearby residents, said Austin McWilliams, a representative of CSW Development and executive vice president with Jones Lang LaSalle.

The big picture

Waeltz & Prete Inc. is seeking to open a 64,000-square-foot commercial development, including a 13,500-square-foot Trader Joe’s alongside three office, showroom or warehouse buildings, according to city documents. The development would cater to small businesses, including retailers, coffee shops or showrooms, as well as professional offices, McWilliams said.

The developer’s request would amend the site’s future land use plan from local office/retail/commercial to regional office/retail/commercial to allow for a mixed-use retail and business center. Additionally, council is expected to vote on rezoning the area from professional office to general business-conditional overlay.

After meeting with community stakeholders, including nearby residents, the developer has reduced the project’s total square footage by around 10,000 square feet as well as proposed a larger landscape bufferyard and setback from properties south of the development.

The city’s Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approving the zoning changes with additional conditions. If approved, the development’s max building height could be 35 feet instead of 100 feet within 200 feet of the southern properties. The conditions would also prohibit an alcoholic beverage establishment or outdoor commercial amusement project from being built near the area.

What residents are saying

At the Feb. 27 meeting, three residents shared their concerns about a Trader Joe’s opening near their property, including Andy and Jill McGuire, who filed a petition to oppose the developer’s rezoning request. Andy McGuire requested that the developer keep 25% of the property designated for professional office spaces.

“Right now, tonight, if you go to the Arboretum where the Trader Joe's is, it's a zoo,” Andy McGuire said. “There isn't a professional office parking lot or building in the city right now that has more than three cars sitting in and the lights are all dead. It's fundamentally different.”

Nearby resident Tristan Chizick said the development would bring increased traffic to the area and asked that the city conduct a traffic study before approving the rezoning.

The city received 25 emails or letters from residents, about half of which were in support of a Trader Joe’s and half of which were against, according to city documents.

Around 1,800 people currently follow a Facebook page called “Bring Trader Joe’s to Cedar Park, TX,” which was started by Cedar Park resident Christina Legrand in 2015.

The other side

McWilliams said the developer wanted to address neighbors' concerns but noted they had already reduced the project’s square footage and made other enhancements that presented a challenge.

“We have tried to be mindful of the concerns of those closest to our proposed project by pushing this building as truly as far as you can and still have a viable project,” McWilliams said.

Some council members said they understood neighbors’ apprehension but were concerned about placing too many restrictions on the developer.

“I feel that the applicant is really going out of their way to try to meet you in the middle,” council member Eric Boyce said. “It feels like ... we're really trying to put so many brackets on this thing that it makes that project really nonviable for the applicant.”

Stay tuned

Council may have its second reading and take action on the zoning changes at its next meeting in March.

Education Reporter

Chloe is an education reporter covering Leander, Liberty Hill and Lake Travis ISDs. She joined Community Impact as reporter in May 2023 after graduating with a degree in journalism from The University of Texas. Chloe previously served as the Austin metro intern for CI in summer 2022 and has interned for KXAN-TV, KUT and Austin Woman. When she’s not writing, she enjoys spending time in nature, thrift shopping, reading and listening to live music. Her passion is engaging communities around hyperlocal coverage.

Thanks for reading!

Daily news about your community is free, and your support is invaluable.

Give $10 now towards CI's journalistic mission across Texas.

Become a CI Patron

The Firefly Aerospace "Blue Ghost" safely arrived on the moon's surface on Sunday.

CEDAR PARK, Texas — Over the weekend, a private Central Texas company landed on the moon. Firefly Aerospace, based in Cedar Park, landed its first spacecraft early Sunday morning.

Teams watched from the mission operations center in Cedar Park as the spacecraft went down onto the lunar surface and landed in a basin on the near side of the moon.

The lander will perform experiments that include drilling, dust mitigation and X-ray imaging of Earth's magnetic field.

Kevin Schulte, a Firefly future systems architect, spoke with KVUE about the landing.

"It's tremendous," Schulte said. "It's a privilege. It's incredible to be trusted by NASA to take on a mission of this nature. The Firefly team, of course, is just giddy like children, you know, getting to engage with the universe in a completely new way, for a whole new generation. It's hard to describe."

He explained what the lunar lander will be doing for the next few weeks.

"We touched down, really, at the beginning of the lunar day. And because, you know, the moon takes a month to go around the Earth, a lunar day is about two weeks long. So we get two weeks of daylight. And that's how long our mission will last on the surface," Schulte said.

"So we will get, you know, 14 days of operations with payloads, doing experiments on the surface regular, even looking back at the Earth with an X-ray telescope, looking at the Earth's magnetosphere and how it interacts with the sun," Schulte added.

He said the spacecraft is a solar-powered autonomous vehicle, which creates some extra challenges.

"You know, it's hard to take enough batteries with you to survive two weeks of total darkness, especially in abyssal cryogenic darkness. You know, it's -250 in the shade, so that's a hard thing to survive."

This is just the beginning for the company. Schulte said the landing is part of a NASA program highlighting commercial lunar payload services, which is part of a larger effort to implement the commercial industry and the exploration of space. It's also meant to help foster "a lunar economy."

With this in mind, Schulte said, "The hope here, the great experiment that we're embarking on, is building up the network of vendors like ourselves who can then go and create a sustainable lunar economy for NASA payloads, for commercial payloads, for sustained permanent presence on the lunar surface."

The lander won't take a return flight home.

"The spacecraft is actually going to stay on the surface of the moon," Schulte said. "Once it's there, it's going to be there for the rest of time, you know. Oh, we expect it'll survive."

Schulte believes the lander could last roughly 40,000 years or so in space before deteriorating.

He said Firefly has a data link that should be strong enough for an HD live stream. After the sun goes down, he expects the lander to survive for roughly five hours. That time will then be used to collect as much data as possible.

"So, you know, every hour that the lander stays alive will be, we'll be blasting power through our radios to get all the data back to the Earth. And, you know, who knows? Maybe we'll be fortunate enough and be able to start up the next lunar day [two weeks after sunset.]," he said. "But right now, the plan is that once the sun goes down and our batteries run out, that'll be the end of the mission."

But this mission is just the beginning.

Schulte said Firefly is on contract with NASA for two additional missions, with one set for next year on the far side of the moon.

"We'll be delivering a mission there along with the relay to communicate that data back. And then we've got a third mission taking a rover to the surface in 2028," he said.

While the future of spacecrafts on the moon remains uncertain, Schulte said he believes Firefly will be a leader in whatever is to come.

Firefly Aerospace employees gathered at a watch party in Cedar Park overnight Saturday, anxiously watching a livestream as Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander slowly inched toward the moon's surface.

"It's such an intense feeling. ... You have to surrender control," Kevin Scholtes, a future systems architect who's spent the past four years working on the project, said. "You have no control over what happens – but you can't tell your body that."

Then came confirmation of the lander's touchdown: "You all stuck the landing. We're on the moon," Will Coogan, chief engineer for the lander, said over the livestream.

Cheers erupted. Scholtes pumped his fist in the air before turning to hug his wife.

"You feel just about every emotion imaginable all at once," he said. "If anything comes through, with clarity in the end, it's the immense pride and gratitude."

The Blue Ghost was carrying 10 science and technology instruments to collect data for NASA. It landed softly in an "upright, stable configuration" within the Mare Crisium, a more than 300-mile-wide basin located on the moon’s near side (the side you can see from Earth), around 2:34 a.m., according a press release.

The achievement makes Firefly only the second commercial company to successfully land a spacecraft on the moon — and the first to ever do so without a hitch. Last year, Houston-based Intuitive Machines sent a spacecraft to the moon, but it stopped working after landing on its side.

Firefly was contracted by NASA to deliver 10 science and technology instruments to the lunar service. Nicola Fox, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, compared the mission to a "delivery service" of sorts.

"We give a challenge, and we want you to land in [a] place and take all these instruments, because ... they are perfectly chosen for the region," she said. "You pick the place you want the package to go, and that's just what we did with Firefly."

Firefly is under contract for two more lunar missions with NASA, with the next projected to launch sometime next year.

"I just wanted to thank the White House administration and NASA for entrusting in Firefly for these lunar lander missions and the Blue Ghost mission today," Jason Kim, the company's CEO, said. "This initiative [has] really helped Firefly evolve from a rocket company to an end-to-end, responsive space company that does launch, land, and orbit, and we're going to continue doing those missions."

The Blue Ghost mission also lays some of the groundwork for NASA's Artemis program, which aims to send astronauts back to the moon by mid-2027.

"We wanna be able to prepare for our future astronauts to go and keep them safe, and so we chose these science instruments perfectly to go to this incredible place on the moon," Fox said.

The Blue Ghost will spend the next lunar day (about 14 Earth days) using these instruments to collect data.

"Our goal is going to be to capture as much data as possible," Ray Allensworth, Firefly's spacecraft program director, said. "We're going to continue to operate the lander as long as our batteries have a state of charge. ... There's a lot of really interesting phenomena that will happen, particularly at sunset, that we really want to make sure and capture."

You can keep up with the lunar lander's journey on Firefly's website.