The history of the shopping center at the northeast corner of Ed Bluestein Boulevard and FM 969 — also known as 183 and East MLK Jr. Boulevard — ends before it begins. Known at various points of its non-development as East Pointe, Palm Square, and Journey Plaza, the effort to build a strip mall in…
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Excuse Me, I Would Like To Get Inside John Treviño Jr. Metropolitan Park
For years, I’ve yearned to get inside John Treviño Jr. Metropolitan Park. The request seems simple enough, as far as hopes and dreams go — it’s a roughly 330-acre tract of former ranch land located on FM 969 in Far East Austin on the northern bank of the Colorado River, purchased by the city’s Parks and Recreation Department in 2003 and named for…
Austin’s Finally Fixing Up the City’s Largest Park at Walter E. Long
In those bygone, downright innocent days of summer 2019, the City of Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department released a vision plan for upgrades to the city’s largest piece of parkland, the approximately 3,695-acre Walter E. Long Metropolitan Park located in far East Austin just west of State Highway 130. The plan for improving the park, produced by engineering and design consultancy Halff Associates, could best…
East Austin’s Walter E. Long Park Master Plan Is Completely Bonkers
After a year of public engagement and work by planning firm Halff Associates, Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department will present its plan for the improvement of East Austin’s Walter E. Long Park to the city’s Parks and Recreation Board later this month. We’ve noted for years that the park, which at 3,695 acres including its lake and surrounding land is more…
Draining Lake Walter E. Long for a Golf Course Is a Breathtakingly Stupid Idea
Walter E. Long Metropolitan Park, located near the eastern edge of the city limits, is the largest park in Austin — and it’s not even close. I mean, just look at this: But in true Austin form, we’ve been keeping things weird by doing almost nothing to utilize these thousands of acres of land, including the 1,165-acre lake in the…
Lake Walter E. Long: Austin’s Most Overlooked Opportunity
Do you ever think about Lake Walter E. Long? That’s not a trick question, really — in my experience, many people just don’t think about the lake or the massive swaths of city parkland surrounding it, even though it’s only a short drive east from downtown. Unless you enjoy fishing, that is, in which case you’re probably already…