‘A park that lasts generations’: Civic Park project at Hemisfair on track for 2023 completion
https://sanantonioreport.org/civic-p...fair-progress/
On one side of a tall chain-link construction fence along East Nueva Street, neighborhood residents walk their dogs, children run and play, and parents watch from park benches shaded by leafy trees.
On the other, crews on front-loaders move piles of rock and soil as stonemasons work under tilted canopies to lay massive sections of limestone brought by specialized forklifts.
The mesh sign on the barrier says “coming soon,” assurance to passersby that the $28 million park officials have said will transform a key pedestrian intersection in downtown San Antonio is well underway.
After pandemic-wrought delays, construction of Civic Park in a 5-acre section of Hemisfair began in January. On track to be completed in August 2023, two years later than originally planned, the first phase of the park is beginning to take shape.
A project manager for general contractor Skanska led a recent tour of the site where the park, designed by Seattle-based landscape architecture firm GGN, is being built along the west side of the Henry B. González Convention Center on the grounds of the 1968 World’s Fair.
Tom Hull, senior project manager for Skanska, considers Civic Park the work of a lifetime. “I’ve built schools and universities and those are cool … but this is a spot that my daughter will come to in 20 years and [say], ‘Hey, your granddad built this,’” he said.
“It’s one of those projects that you always want to have on your résumé that not everyone gets to have, and the team is really excited about what this is going to be and the vision,” he said.
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Hemisfair part two
Civic Park was designed to be the “grandest” of Hemisfair’s park series, according to Hemisfair officials, a great public place not unlike urban greenspaces in other major cities, including Millennium Park in Chicago and Prospect Park in Brooklyn.
The city of Austin has Zilker Park, which the tourism site Thrillist calls one of the top 15 city parks in the United States. Also making the list are Boston Commons, Dolores Park in San Francisco and The Gathering Place in Tulsa, but New York City’s 843-acre Central Park, designed by the “father of landscape architecture,” Frederick Law Olmsted, set the standard.
In a city known for its linear parks, the vision for Civic Park began as part of the overall Hemisfair redevelopment plan. Former Mayor Phil Hardberger proposed the idea as a way to re-energize the tired former fairgrounds.
In 2009, City Council established the nonprofit Hemisfair Park Area Redevelopment Corporation to lead a public-private partnership. The first phase of Hemisfair was completed in 2015 when Yanaguana Garden opened to the public.
Voters agreed in 2017 to allocate $21 million for the next segment, Civic Park, which was expected to start in 2021 but delayed due to the pandemic and funding shortfalls. The project was later split into two phases with a second tract of 4 acres in the farthest northwest corner put on hold until the first phase is complete.
A timeline for what has been called Tower Park — the area surrounding the Tower of the Americas, the Institute of Texan Cultures, several historic structures from the World’s Fair and the former federal courthouse — are still undetermined.
Some progress has been made on plans for the eastern zone of Hemisfair, which is no longer being referred to by Hemisfair officials as Tower Park. An infrastructure review is ongoing in the area surrounding the Tower of the Americas as Hemisfair officials work through issues with historic rehabilitation of some structures and determine how to use the area.
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