A 25-ton steel sculpture marking The Woodlands' 50th anniversary is weeks away from completion at the intersection where the community's first concrete was poured more than five decades ago.

The artwork, called "First Fifty," spans 50 feet in diameter and sits in the median between the eastbound and westbound lanes of Woodlands Parkway at Grogan's Mill Road. Crews physically installed the sculpture on Sept. 12, 2025, and the broader project is expected to wrap up by late August or early September, according to Landology assistant project manager Patricia Uribe, who told the Houston Chronicle on Wednesday, July 29, that work would finish "within the next month or so."

The sculpture was funded jointly by The Woodlands Township, Howard Hughes and the Town Center Owner's Association. A separate eight-acre landscape refresh surrounding the intersection was funded by Woodlands Road Utility District No. 1.

Landology, the Town Center-based landscape architecture firm behind both projects, designed the sculpture's circular form to represent a clock face. Eight metallic trees inside the ring nod to The Woodlands' eight residential villages, with branches evoking the township's forested character.

"There were four primary ideas that influenced that design," Landology founder Jonathan McMillian told the Chronicle. "They were people, belonging, time and the native forest."

The landscape refresh adds more than 400 new trees, new plants and shrubs, planters, stonework and new lighting under the Woodlands Parkway overpass. Three trees George Mitchell planted were preserved. The project also includes a revamped plaque honoring Plato Pappas, the first civil engineer hired to build The Woodlands.

Nelda Luce Blair, chair of RUD No. 1, said the district took on the landscape work after board members studied the intersection and saw how much it had deteriorated. She told the Chronicle she was "appalled at the things that I don't notice and I drive by there everyday, (regarding) the erosion, lack of planting and fading infrastructure."

The intersection holds special significance as the site of the first concrete pour for The Woodlands in the early 1970s, when developer George Mitchell began turning 28,500 acres of Piney Woods into what is now a 120,000-resident master-planned community.

Board minutes from RUD No. 1's Sept. 15, 2025, meeting show the board unanimously approved a $179,988.97 payment to contractor Millis Development & Construction for work on the project. At the same meeting, directors requested pricing for additional artwork on the project bridge, signaling the scope could expand.

The sculpture's appearance shifts depending on the speed and angle from which drivers approach it, Uribe said. No ribbon-cutting date has been set.