San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
CIVIC PARK
features: the majestic Promenade, the Hill Country-inspired water feature called the Springs, and the Great Lawn, a large, open community gathering space.
The second part of Civic
Park, 1.6 acres in size and currently under construction, is slated to open in late 2024.
Here’s a look at San Antonio’s newest urban oasis:
The Promenade
Cutting a swath from one corner of Civic Park to another, the Promenade is most notable for the two lines of majestic Mexican sycamore trees running run down either side of its the 825-foot length.
Like all the other trees and greenery in the park, these are “100% local,” Andujar said.
“And not only local today but local 300 years ago,” he said. “These trees and plants were here going back to when only the natives were hanging out here.”
While numerous other native trees — oaks, cedar elms, crape myrtle and more — were planted throughout the park, the sycamores were selected primarily for their upright growth, like soldiers standing at attention.
“They have a clean vertical, and we were trying to do something geometric and contemporary looking,” Andujar said.
And it doesn’t hurt that they’re fast-growing, droughttolerant and throw a lot of shade.
With environmental sustainability as one of the project’s stated goals, Civic Park is also home to 33 large “legacy” trees transplanted from elsewhere. Twelve of these trees, for example, were taken from where the residential apartment building The ’68 now stands.
“It cost $20,000 to $30,000 to move each tree,” Andujar said.
The Springs
Running alongside the Promenade, these five water features were inspired by the Hill Country’s natural limestone cliffs.
“We took the designers out to Pedernales Falls, and when they saw it, they got really excited about the design possibilities,” he said.
Reclaimed water cascades down the Springs’ smooth, undulating embankments crafted from blocks of Lueders limestone. The soothing burble helps dampen the roar of the surrounding city.
In designing the Springs, Andujar said, the landscape architects took lessons from how the public interacts with other area parks.
Shortly after San Pedro Springs Culture Park opened in 2018, for example, concerns
about street runoff contaminating the water with chemicals and bacteria forced a temporary closure so one of its channels could be redesigned in a way to
discourage people, especially children, from wading and swimming in the water.
To avoid similar problems, Civic Park uses reclaimed water
that is filtered, purified with UV light and then chlorinated before being added to the Springs.
“After all that, you end up with pool-quality water,” Andujar
said. “It’s so clean you can drink it. I don’t recommend it, but you can.”
The Great Lawn
The third section of the newly opened park, this 1.5-acre green space is quickly becoming San Antonio’s answer to Central Park’s own Great Lawn in New York City. It’s large enough to host several thousand people for concerts such as September’s Jazz’SAlive, culinary festivals and other events.
“We’ve tested nine different stage configurations through the seven events we’ve had here in the first two months,” he said.
Little of the park’s design wasn’t carefully considered. For example, as part of the redevelopment, several streets that made up the neighborhood that predated the World’s Fair have been reopened. While allowing car traffic in a public park might seem counterintuitive, Andjuar explained that in addition to parkland, Hemisfair is a community that also contains residential apartments, restaurants and retail stores.
“It’s important to our success that these all have a ‘front door’ that people can drive to,” he said.
In the interest of safety, however, the streets are narrow and have a posted speed limit of only 5 mph. Also, metal drain covers in the streets are bolted down only loosely, so they clank and clatter when a car runs over them. This helps alert pedestrians, as Andujar said, “that something mechanical is coming up behind them.”
As another example of the park’s design, Andjuar points to the 26-foot-wide fire lane running along one side of the Convention Center.
Made of thick limestone blocks, the lane can support heavy emergency vehicles such as firetrucks and ambulances. But since emergencies don’t happen every day, it’s also long and wide enough to accommodate up to 40 food and merchandise booths.
“Yes, it’s utilitarian,” Andujar said “But other than that, we are here to party.”
Finally, the nearby standalone restroom building also combines form and function, able to handle whatever rough treatment it gets while also looking attractive, even for a restroom.
“Public restrooms have to be bulletpoof,” he said. “These are designed so the fixtures are easy to repair, because you know they’re going to get broken. But they’re also easy to clean because, if they’re not clean, people aren’t going to use them.”
There’s even space between the tops of the walls and the ceiling for passive ventilation. Because if they smell bad, people aren’t going to use them either.