An Update On Heritage Park

Last year, I reported on the sad state of Heritage Park on the bluff looking over the river next to the courthouse, closed by the city with no announcements about its status or future. Lately, information on the park has been coming out at last, and I’d like to report the latest.

I’ve just got done speaking with City of Fort Worth Communications Officer Veronica Villegas, who had a wealth of information on the park’s status. Heritage Park was closed in 2007 because the city was concerned about potential safety incidents due to the park’s run-down state. At the time, the city decided to close the park without so much as a newpaper blurb, which led to a lot of speculation about the park’s fate. Whenever something closes with zero fanfare, the assumptions always tend to skew towards “demolition,” which is exactly the word-of-mouth that was going around at the time. Personally, I think the city’s lack of communication previously about the park’s closure was a blunder; enough people knew about the park and wanted to see it become well cared for again that simply throwing up the gates and remaining tight-lipped about it led to distrust and fear for the park’s survival. After speaking with Ms. Villegas, I must commend the city for reversing its mistake and deciding to take an open and proactive approach to informing the public now.

The answer to the question everybody wants to know is: the park isn’t going to be demolished. It’s staying, but its future is not entirely certain beyond that.

Streams and Valleys commissioned Carter + Burgess to take a look at Heritage Park and see what needed to be done to save the space. Carter + Burgess found a wealth of problems – shifting soils had done bad things to the park’s concrete structures and plumbing. The park isn’t ADA compliant. A number of safety concerns were raised – parts of the park that did not have handrails and had places where people could easily fall into water. Carter + Burgess estimated the costs of fully repairing & modifying Heritage Park to be $7.3 million, which comes at a time when the city’s budget isn’t particularly flush with funds.

Further problems arise from fixing the park, though. The changes required by safety & ADA compliance – such as safer and more accessible water crossings – are likely to have a negative impact on the park’s design. After all, part of the point of the design is the “up close & personal” way visitors interact with the water features. How could the park be brought up to compliance without ruining the design in the process?

To find out, the city is enlisting the help of Laurie Olin, a landscape designer who has worked with Lawrence Halprin in the past. Olin will prepare a design proposal for the renovation of Heritage Park that will try and balance the needs of safety and accessibility while being sensitive to Halprin’s original design.

And then, of course, there’s the question of funding. Perhaps one of Fort Worth’s famed public-private partnerships is required.

Preservation of Halprin’s work is spotty. One of the best examples of a restored and beloved Halprin space is the Ira Keller Fountain in Portland, Oregon, which the city should consider as a good source of inspiration while deciding what the future will hold for Heritage Park.

With the new sense of communication the city is displaying on this topic, I look forward to bringing you all further updates as the process of bringing life back to Heritage Park.