You don’t just roll out of bed one morning and decide to transplant a 75 year-old, 170,000 pound Live Oak tree.

To be precise, it has taken the better part of 10 months to make sure everything was in order, and yesterday the signature tree for the future Lake Highlands Town Center was moved to its final resting, or should we say "growing" place.

Back in September of 2008, the root ball of this very special tree was isolated, as plans got underway for the preparation of its transplant.


The tree in question is roughly 50 feet tall. In fact, its root ball alone measures 21 feet in diameter and is over 4 feet thick.

Isolating the root ball back in the fall of last year, in preparation for the move, helped to guarantee the tree would survive its recent move.

“Given all the prep work we did on this tree, survivability is 100%," says Jonathan Judice, VP of Environmental Design, Inc. "If it was going to die, it would have died months ago."

“To my knowledge, this is the largest tree ever transplanted in the Dallas area," adds Judice.

On Thursday, the signature tree was moved roughly 400 feet to the middle of what will eventually become the median of Wildcat Way, the main thoroughfare of the LH Town Center .

Several large pieces of very heavy equipment were needed to complete the move, including an oversize semi-trailer and a massive 250,000 pound crane. The crane actually needed an additional 300,000 pounds of counter weight in order to execute the lifts.

And, of course, a move like this doesn't come cheap. Prescott will receive a bill totaling roughly $30,000 when all is said and done.

Stephanie Colovas, Senior Managing Director at Prescott Realty Group, talked with LH Today about the historic transplant and what it signifies for the LHTC project.

“While serving as the signature tree for the Town Center, this tree also provides more evidence of Prescott's commitment to going green with this development.”

Colovas also revealed that all the trees included in the Town Center ’s landscape design will need to be in place before construction begins on the center's interior streets.

“All of the trees seen going in right now were transplanted from the tree farms Prescott created on the north and south ends of the development," says Colovas.

"These tree farms were utilized so we could save existing trees for reuse within the development. As soon as all the trees are transplanted, work will begin on the streets.”

LH Today will continue to track the progress of the LHTC development, so stay tuned for additional updates.

To see renderings of the future development, visit Prescott Realty's website at http://www.lakehighlandstowncenter.com.