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Located on the western edge of downtown San Antonio, the San Pedro Creek Culture Park is a new world-class linear park where the past flows to the future in a revitalized environment teaming with extensive native plantings, inspired art, splendid paseos, iconic pavilions, places of respite, and cultural reflections.
The first segment of the San Pedro Creek Culture Park – stretching from the flood tunnel inlet at North Santa Rosa Street near Fox Tech High School to Houston Street – will debut on May 5.
The creation of the San Pedro Creek Culture Park has brought San Pedro Creek back to life, transforming it from a concrete-lined drainage ditch to a more natural creek environment. The revitalized creek transports visitors back to when natural flora and fauna reigned supreme.
Exemplifying beauty with a purpose, the San Pedro Creek Culture Park serves as vital infrastructure for a growing downtown – by increasing the depth and width of the existing creek channel to safely conveying floodwaters within San Pedro Creek’s banks. The construction of the channel will fully contain the FEMA floodplain and high paseos, or walkways, that will allow for safe passage up to the 100-year event.
The first phase and segment of the Culture Park features nearly 10,000 new native landscaping features, including 5,824 aquatic plants, 133 shade trees, 47 ornamental trees, 849 shrubs, 291 vines, and 2,426 perennials. All totaled, the initial four-block segment of the Culture Park has more than 40,000 square feet of grasses, more than 18,000 square feet of ground cover, and more than 12,000 square feet of aquatic planting.
Among the low-impact development and landscape features are five bioswales, specifically landscaped features that soak up and filter storm water runoff from hard surfaces such as roofs, pavement and parking lots. A bioswale is constructed with quick-draining soil and drainage layers to filter and clean storm water and make it healthy and usable for the native plants and wildlife along the creek. The project also features storm water interceptors, which are specialized mechanical devices that capture floating trash at storm water inlets before it reaches the creek, helping to ensure the sustainability of the biotic habitat.
Animal species native to San Antonio and South Texas have already begun to find their way back to the restored creek habitat. Depending on the season or time of day, visitors will be able to see a variety of bird, reptile, and fish species in and around the San Pedro Creek Culture Park. Many of these species are the same as those that inhabited the area thousands of years ago when the indigenous people and Spanish explorers were laying the foundation for our community.
The completed first segment will be celebrated with an all-day grand opening event on May 5. The grand opening event is free and open to the public and will incorporate family-friendly fun lining the banks of the San Pedro Creek Culture Park from noon to 9 p.m., including food trucks, live music, children’s activities, and historical presentations – as well as an evening Illumination Ceremony beginning at 7:30 p.m. presented by Bexar County.
The vision for San Pedro Creek was made possible by a partnership between Bexar County and the San Antonio River Authority, in coordination with the City of San Antonio. The San Pedro Creek Culture Park will encompass a total of four phases, with three segments in Phase 1. With the first segment of Phase 1 complete, the second segment from Houston Street to Nueva Street is currently under construction.
For more information about the San Pedro Creek Culture Park and its grand opening details, please visit SPCculturepark.com.
