Zilker Park Vision Plan

Austin, Texas

Austin’s ecological treasure, renewed for generations to come

Zilker Metropolitan Park (Zilker Park) was designated as a public park in 1934. With lands donated in 1917 by Andrew Jackson Zilker, the history of the park’s land goes back thousands of years. Today, with approximately 350 acres of area to explore, Zilker Park is a complex blend of precious environmental resources, cherished traditions and events, economic income for the City, and a symbol of the Austin lifestyle. A comprehensive plan has never been completed for the park until this initiative. With the vast number of stakeholders, visitors, and complicated regulations that exist within the Park, a plan is long overdue. It will provide a road map for Zilker Park’s improvements for the next several decades, ensuring the park’s rich legacy continues.

Building upon previous planning efforts and studies on various aspects of Zilker Park from the past decade, the team worked to build consensus on improvement strategies for the entire park. Challenges included balancing priorities, from historic preservation to innovative adaptive reuse of facilities, accommodating masses of visitors while protecting the ecological treasures within the park, and making improvements that facilitate the enjoyment of the site today while thinking long-term about the future uses of public space.

Services Provided: Park Master Planning, Park Programming, Landscape Architecture, Signage & Interpretive Design, Public Outreach, Cost Estimating

Client

City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department