Dignowity Park Project

The Dignowity Park Project is a $5 million project improving a 9-acre public park in the Eastside Promise Zone, a diverse, bilingual area in San Antonio, TX that was selected as one of five areas in President Obama’s initiative to provide enhanced access to federal support intended to revitalize high-poverty communities by creating jobs, increasing economic activity, and improving educational opportunity, reducing crime, and growing leadership capacity.

The park will provide new health benefits to more than 5,644 people in a 25-minute walking radius- 27% of whom are under the age of 17 (56% of whom are below the poverty line).  Leveraging $350K in citizen contributions and in-kind services, Phase 1 of the project was funded through a $3.1 million municipal bond allotment in 2017, for construction beginning January 2019. Aiming to fulfill Promise Zone capacity-building objectives, key pieces of these components were designed for collaborative construction so as to provide service-learning opportunities to local youth organizations.

The project is produced by Public Space East with community partners (San Antonio Parks Foundation, Dignowity Hill Neighborhood Association) and design/engineering partners – Overland Partners, TBG Partners, Lake Flato, Big Red Dog, CNG Engineering. 

I serve as a director and founding member of Public Space East with Nicolas Rivard, Cotton Estes, Tony & Sonya Castro.

Renderings courtesy of Lake Flato, TBG Partners, and Overland Partners. Thumbnail image by Lake Flato.