State officials close to a deal to expand Pedernales Falls park

A deal meant to protect the views in a popular Hill Country state park appears to be near completion, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department officials and a landowner said Thursday.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department will buy, at no more than half the market rate, 200 acres of private property on a bluff opposite Pedernales Falls State Park. Landowner Mike Maples also will voluntarily mark an additional 70 acres as off-limits to development.

In total, roughly 3,200 feet of riverfront will be preserved, according to parks officials.

Pedernales Falls State Park, established more than 45 years ago, comprises 5,212 acres of Hill Country hiking trails and limestone bluffs, located 40 miles west of Austin.

But the department doesn’t own land on both sides of the Pedernales River in areas overlooking the park’s namesake falls, and department staff members have long been concerned about the future of key vistas.

Exact terms of the deal aren’t yet public, but it shapes up to be a generous offer from a landowner who wants to preserve the park for the public.

Maples, 75, has owned the 1,500-acre tract known as Cypress Mill Ranch since 1992. A native of Oklahoma, he and his family have long been involved in the tech business. He said he wanted to figure out a way to keep much of the property together for his children and grandchildren and preserve the bluff for the public.

The land, a portion of a larger ranch, could go for $25,000 an acre or more, Chey Perrin, a real