Drones over Mesquite: where Zipline started, what the city signed, what's next

Walmart registers "Walmart Store #427 Zipline Drone Delivery" at 7401 Interstate Highway 30, Greenville, Hunt County, with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation as a $750,000 renovation: "Install a drone delivery system and equipment" plus a new foundation, designed by Kimley-Horn. Start date March 2, completion May 2, 2025. This is a building-accessibility registration, not a drone approval, and it is the only state record of the Greenville site DroneXL found.

Zipline and Walmart begin deliveries from the Mesquite Supercenter at Belt Line Road and U.S. 80 the week of April 8, 2025, free, to addresses within two miles, with a plan to reach ten. The P2 hovers around 300 feet while a foam-and-carbon droid lowers the order on a tether. The first record of it at City Hall is a resident at the April 7 Citizens Forum announcing a Zipline community event at the store. The city records DroneXL checked, the April 7, 2025 action agenda and the 2026 permit file, show no zoning case for the Walmart dock; staff told the council in 2026 that a permit is required when drone delivery is the primary use of a lot; on that reading, a dock in a store's parking lot would be an accessory use, which is why DroneXL found no zoning case for it.

The FAA publishes Zipline's draft assessment for Dallas-Fort Worth and takes public comment for 30 days. The final document records that the agency received one comment. By then Mesquite had been flying for two months.

The decision allows Zipline up to 75 sites and 500 docks in the metro, no more than 20 docks at one site, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, holidays included, with about 95% of flights between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. Each site may run up to 400 deliveries a day inside a 10-mile radius; the document says Zipline would "gradually increase to up to 400 deliveries per day at high volume sites." The P2 Zip weighs about 55 pounds, carries up to 8, cruises at 330 feet and stays under 400. At the customer it holds altitude and lowers a droid by winch line, about 75 seconds of hover. If something goes wrong it can dock, hover, or use what the document calls paraland, "deployment of a parachute to safely land the Zip." Noise: in-flight at 330 feet is 69.1 dBA SEL; takeoff and delivery stay "below 85 dB SEL for 30 seconds"; a day-night level of 65 dB reaches 70 feet from a site's perimeter and 60 dB reaches 150 feet. Sites must be at least 150 feet from noise-sensitive areas, 325 feet inside controlled airspace around airports. The document names no city and no county list for operations; its wildlife chapter covers 24 counties, Dallas and Hunt among them.

Zipline asks to rezone 5.10 acres at 227 E. U.S. Highway 80, the Quality Home Furniture lot, from Commercial to Commercial with a conditional use permit for a "Drone Delivery Service (SIC 4789a) as a primary use." Staff recommend five stipulations: the permit is for Zipline only and "is not transferable or assignable to a different owner or business"; the drone staging area is limited to 5,500 square feet inside an eight-foot black ornamental metal fence with gates that meet fire-access code; no storage containers or permanent generators; inoperative equipment removed within 30 days; and after three code convictions in any 12 months the building official revokes the certificate of occupancy and Zipline "shall automatically forfeit the CUP." The commission recommends approval with those stipulations.

Planning director Adam Bailey tells the council the site would have three drone towers with 12 docking stations each, remove 34 parking spaces and keep 364, and needs a permit under Section 3-513 because drone delivery is the primary use. Zipline's Stephanie Cook says the drones would carry food, retail and medical items including prescriptions, start within two miles and grow to ten, carry up to eight pounds; the minutes record that "Operating hours would depend on delivery partners." No property owner in the notification area wrote in for or against; nobody else speaks. Hubacek moves, Green seconds; Hubacek, Green, Alemán, Casper and Murden vote yes, Rodriguez-Ross no, Smith absent. One number to watch: the minutes say "three drone towers with 12 docking stations each," 36 on this lot, while the FAA's December decision sets a "maximum of 20 docks at a single site." Whether a docking station and an FAA dock are the same unit, or whether Zipline sought an amendment, DroneXL did not check with Zipline or the FAA.

Three days after the Mesquite vote the FAA signs one decision for 22 Amazon sites in Texas. One is STX3 at 4445 Rock Quarry Road, Dallas, 3.2 miles from Mesquite City Hall: up to 1,000 flights a day, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., with the MK30 at a maximum takeoff weight of about 83.2 pounds carrying up to 5, flying en route between about 180 and 377 feet and dropping the package from about 13 feet. The assessment puts an overflight at 50 feet at about 74.2 decibels, which it compares to a leaf blower at the same distance, and notes the site is across the street from a multi-family development with a school about a quarter mile away. The hub is in Dallas's jurisdiction, not Mesquite's. DroneXL's tracker lists it as approved and not operating as of Oct. 11, 2026.

A Zipline drone flying for Walmart deploys its parachute over a Greenville neighborhood and drifts onto a residential street, coming to rest about three feet from a parked pickup. Resident Tammy Mitchell, working in her garage, hears a pop and watches it come down; her message to Zipline: "one of your friends is laying in our yard." Nobody is hurt. A Walmart employee covers the aircraft with a tarp for recovery. A second parachute landing follows on Sept. 4 in Cypress, outside Houston, onto Highway 6.

Asked the same questions as Amazon and Wing, Zipline puts on the record that the P2 weighs 55 pounds empty and 63 loaded, that both the aircraft and the delivery pod carry a parachute, that a tangled tether separates on its own and the customer keeps the pod, and that "All cameras are in a fixed position and cannot pan, tilt, or zoom." It does not give the number of parachute landings in US service, a decibel figure, weather limits, or who pays when one lands on a road; it says a safety document is coming. Amazon and Wing answered nothing.