SAN ANTONIO – Editor’s note: This story was published through a partnership between the San Antonio Business Journal and KSAT.
The San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department has outlined plans for a new public park on a property near the Hays Street Bridge, which the city acquired last year.
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The San Antonio Historic and Design Review Commission granted conceptual approval last week to plans for the proposed park at what is now a vacant lot at 803 N. Cherry St., as well as final approval to move a 1976 bandstand from Alamo Plaza to the site.
Plans for development at the park follow a City Council land swap for the property last June with local developer Mitch Meyer of Loopy Ltd., who planned to build an apartment complex on the site. That deal followed years of controversy from neighborhood activists over the apartment project and a Texas Supreme Court ruling that the city was not immune to a breach of contract lawsuit filed in 2012, which argued that the city violated state law and breached a memorandum of understanding by selling the property and not reserving it for park land.
The city selected local engineer Dunaway to collaborate on a plan for a park that would generate support from the surrounding community.
The park is named Berkeley V. and Vincent M. Dawson Park after the property’s previous owners who donated the land to the city in 2007 for use as a park.
Read more on the park plans, including the “timeline walk,” at the San Antonio Business Journal.