A Reimagined Waterloo Park Invites the Public to It on CommUNITY Day: It was 10 years in the remaking, but finally the Waterloo redo is ready for you – Arts

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Waterloo Park (Courtesy Waterloo Greenway Conservancy)

UPDATED: Due to rising COVID cases and Austin’s re-entry into Phase 5, all Community Day events and programs have been postponed. However, Waterloo Park will be open to the public from 10am on August 14th.

Hey, remember when there was once a park between San Jacinto and Red River on 12th Street? Waller Creek ran through it. Live oaks grew everywhere. There used to be Fun Fun Fun Fest, Pachanga Fest, Spamarama and the Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival.

If you’ve been in Austin long enough to remember Waterloo Park, you might think the place is gone. All 11 acres of it were under lock and key for a full decade while an underground flood control tunnel was built (and then rebuilt) for Waller and the Waller Creek Conservancy – now the Waterloo Greenway – led the reinvention of the park.

Well, the work is finally finished, the fence has fallen and this weekend the citizens of Austin are officially welcomed back to Waterloo. Waterloo Greenway and the city dubbed Community Day this Saturday, August 14th, filling it with a full calendar of events with local musicians and performance groups, grocery vendors and local dignitaries delivering the mandatory speeches to showcase the new audience Amenities.

When you get there, however, prepare for a shock. The park resembles old Waterloo about as much as the skyline is now with the 2011 skyline. The stream still flows through it, of course, and there are still live oaks. But the park now has a permanent performance space, the Moody Amphitheater – you may have seen photos of its roof covering made of crisscrossing I-beams – that can seat up to 5,000 people; an intimate alternative to the Moody, Lebermann Plaza, with around 200 seats on curved rows of limestone blocks; a play area with a stone slide and a climbing frame made of tree trunks; 92,000 plants and more than 500 trees; and the massive inlet building that directs flood waters from Waller Creek down to Lady Bird Lake, covered in a 6,500-square-foot mural by Venezuelan artist Arturo Herrera; and a mile-long path that winds from one corner of the park to the other.

These and other attractions will certainly be described in more detail by the speakers at CommUNITY Day. Mayor Steve Adler, Mayor Pro Tem Natasha Harper-Madison and Councilor Kathie Tovo are expected to speak at the 10am land recognition and severing ceremony; Congressman Lloyd Doggett; Dr. Colette Pierce Burnette, President and CEO of Huston-Tillotson University; Vice Chairman of the Moody Foundation, Ross Moody; and Waterloo Greenway interim CEO Kathy Miller and Chairman of the Board Cotter Cunningham. Afterward, you can discover the new sights for yourself and also enjoy performances by SaulPaul, the Huston-Tillotson Jazz Ensemble, the Ballet Folklórico de Austin, the Tiarra Girls, a birds of prey flight show, the Elsewhere Dance Collective and more. as well as food from Stubb’s Bar-BQ, Flyrite Chicken, Burro Cheese Kitchen and Taco Baby.

At 7 p.m. the day ends with the first concert at the Moody Amphitheater as the home of music: Taste of Austin, a showcase for 10 local bands and musicians. The bill includes Tameca Jones, Riders Against the Storm, Gina Chavez, Bavu Blakes, Stephanie Bergara, Big Wy’s Brass Band, DJ Zetroc, Cynthia Lee Fontaine, Mélat and Rapid Ric.

If you are concerned about your health – and we should all be – Waterloo Greenway and its partners will follow all COVID-19 safety guidelines. As recommended by the City of Austin and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, all guests are encouraged to wear face masks during Community Day celebrations.

For participants who are traveling by car, parking spaces are available in the Capitol visitor parking garage, 1201 San Jacinto, and in the State Garage F. The full schedule for the Community Day program can be found at waterloogreenway.org.

Grand opening of Waterloo Park

Waterloo Park, 1200 San Jacinto
waterloogreenway.org
August 14th

A version of this article appeared in print on August 13, 2021 with the headline: The Waterloo Redo Is Ready for You

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