[Politics] Construction of long-awaited park beside Hays Street Bridge to begin this month

[Mr.Hacker]

A rendering shows the skate park to be located at the base of the east end of the historic Hays Street Bridge.
A rendering shows the skate park will be located at the base of the east end of the historic Hays Street Bridge. Credit: Courtesy / City of San Antonio
After years of advocacy and one long and complicated lawsuit, the community around the Hays Street Bridge is finally getting the park they fought for.

Earlier this month, San Antonio City Council approved $2.5 million to kick off construction of what will become the Berkley V. and Vincent M. Dawson Park.

The 1.7 acre park, which will be located on Cherry Street and adjacent to the Alamo Brewery parking lot, will include a skate park, a historic timeline walk describing the community’s connection to the Hays Street Bridge, an educational and historical play space, a pavilion and bike racks with repair stations.

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“When years of hard work pays off, it’s wonderful to hear [when] it happens,” said 84-year-old Nettie Hinton, a lifelong East Side resident and member of the Hays Street Restoration Group. 

Hinton said her activism to preserve the 1880s historical Hays Street Bridge began in the 90s, when it was at risk of being knocked down. When she was growing up, Hinton said the bridge served as a connector from the once-segregated East Side into downtown San Antonio.

After taking a community petition to the city, the bridge was saved and later restored. Around that time, Hinton said she noticed the land beneath the bridge, and thought it would be a good spot for a park.

Hinton said she found the owners of the land, the Dawson family, and asked if they would donate it to the City of San Antonio for a park. 

“The only thing that the Dawson family asked was that the park be named for them and I thought that was very little to ask,” she said. 

Eastside resident Nettie Hinton during a public meeting regarding the Hays Street Bridge in 2019 at the Ella Austin Community Center. 
Eastside resident Nettie Hinton during a public meeting regarding the Hays Street Bridge in 2019 at the Ella Austin Community Center. Credit: Bonnie Arbittier / San Antonio Report
That request was granted, but the journey to make it happen was anything but simple.

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Instead of building a park after the land was donated by the Dawson family, the city sold it to the owner of Alamo Beer Company, Eugene Simor, who received incentives to build the company’s brewery there. At the time, city leadership wanted to spark private investment in the near-East Side. Simor later sold the land to developer Mitch Meyer, who planned to build an apartment building there. 

Community groups, including longtime East Side residents, the Hays Street Bridge Restoration Group and the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center pushed back, arguing that the rapidly gentrifying area should become a park, as the Dawsons and some neighbors first envisioned.

The Hays Street Bridge Restoration Group sued the city in 2012, arguing that the sale of the land to Simor breached the city’s agreement to turn the land into a park.

In 2019, after losing a ruling at the Texas Supreme Court that would have allowed the lawsuit against the city to move forward, then-Councilman Art Hall helped engineer a land swap deal with Meyer, approved by the council, giving him a nearby vacant lot at 223 South Cherry Street and paving the way to the park’s creation.

The $2.5 million comes from city’s FY 2023-2028 Capital Improvement Program and the Tree Canopy Preservation and Mitigation Fund.

The park’s completion is slated for December, weather permitting, according to the city’s Public Works department. 

Graciela Sanchez, executive director of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, told the San Antonio Report on Tuesday that the project could have been done long ago. 

“I’m excited about it. I’m excited that after the lawsuit came down against the city, [the city] didn’t just tell us that we were going to get a park, it has finally set aside money,” she said.

But some nearby residents say they avoid the bridge, pointing out illicit activity they see there.

“It’s covered with homeless people,” said Stephanie Martinez, who has a front-row seat from her home on Hays Street. “When they fixed the bridge, they said it was going to be a better thing and honestly, we don’t even take our kids up there and we live so close because the old people are just smoking weed, they’re drinking, there’s always people fighting.”

The Martinez family walks towards Hays Street Bridge.
The Martinez family walks along Cherry Street in 2017. Credit: Scott Ball / San Antonio Report
Martinez said she hopes that once the park is complete, more police will patrol the area.

Simor told the San Antonio Report on Tuesday he looked forward to the additional activity in the neighborhood, and said he hopes the city maintains the park.

“Unfortunately the city’s track record of maintaining parks and other public properties in the area hasn’t been good. I hope, this one, they’ll be able to set an example of how things should be cared for,” said Simor, adding that he believes the Hays Street Bridge hasn’t been maintained properly. 

“I’m really afraid to say anything because if I give you my true thoughts, they won’t be publishable,” said Simor. “I’ve kinda put the whole land swap park deal behind me and I just wanna look to the future.”

Another neighbor two doors down from Casias said he believes the park will make the neighborhood safer and push crime away. 

“It’s exciting,” said Jesse King, who moved his family into the neighborhood six months ago from Austin. “When people go to a place, it’s less likely to succumb to crime. We’re going to be over there with our kids all the time, which means we’re another eye from the neighborhood on the park.” 

Jesse King, a resident in Dignowity Hill lives just a block from the future park at the Hays Street Bridge.
Jesse King, a resident in Dignowity Hill, lives just a block from the future park next to the Hays Street Bridge. Credit: Scott Ball / San Antonio Report
Whether neighbors use the park or not, Hinton said the Hays Street Bridge has always been important to the community, because it meant jobs for people to earn a decent living. 

“The bridge, to me represented… an aspirational experience for me as a child growing up, and I never lost sight of that. I wanted to make sure that the generations to come would have that experience as well and that people would be able to connect with what was it is no longer because of gentrification,” she said.