February 25, 2025
Parking Lot to Wildlife Habitat Park: St. John Encampment Commons
As soon as jampacked with automobiles, this former Macy’s car parking zone at shuttered Highland Mall now gathers one other sort of group: folks strolling winding paths of colourful wildlife-friendly crops.
In 2014, Austin Group Faculty started renovating the mall as a vibrant campus. As tasks developed, they labored with dwg. panorama architects to create a waterwise city park that honors historic roots as dwelling to the St. John Common Missionary Baptist Affiliation.
We watched the park take form since groundbreaking in 2021. In late Could 2024, we met with Dr. Molly Beth Malcolm, ACC Emeritus Govt Vice Chancellor, Daniel Woodroffe, president of dwg., and Cassie Gowan, dwg. design director. “We needed to maintain the previous mall and see what we might do moderately than tear it right down to construct it and make it sustainable. However a part of that plan was to have lovely inexperienced areas. On the time, about 97% of this space was impervious cowl, and we needed to convey it again to be lovely areas for our college students, school, workers and the group,” Dr. Malcolm mentioned.
Bordered by Wilhelmina Delco Drive and Hage Drive, “This was a narrative about changing parking tons to parks. But it surely was a lot greater than that. It was about adaptive reuse. It was about celebrating the function and significance of water and water administration,” Daniel instructed us. “Of native crops, of understanding a way of taking a neighborhood that was devoid of parks and open areas and giving a spot to collect and are available collectively.”
In 2022, crops had been nonetheless very younger. Some had been nonetheless recovering from Winter Storm Uri’s pounding simply weeks after set up.
Just a few issues received nipped, however most had been unscathed, since Carrie had chosen bulletproof timber, perennials and native bunch grasses. “It’s an enormous testomony to the resiliency of native crops,” she mentioned. She layered evergreens with spikes of seasonal colour. 1,000,000-gallon cistern and Austin Vitality’s reclaimed water system irrigate the campus.
Among the heritage reside oaks had been transported from different components of the previous mall grounds. However they had been positioned on excessive mounds of soil over the asphalt. So, dwg. stitched them collectively to type the amphitheater.
Cassie layered them with native timber, together with lacey oak, Mexican buckeye, redbud, yaupon holly and possumhaw holly. She pairs vibrant colour with soothing whites and silvers that glisten throughout late night time strolls after class.
Within the low level subsequent to the UFCU Pavilion, they created a deep sponge backyard to decelerate stormwater and soak it into the soil. Right here, Cassie planted Mexican sycamore, bald cypress, possumhaw holly, sabal minor, switchgrass, Gulf muhly and groundcover frogfruit. The whole lot has doubled in measurement (a minimum of) since this fall 2023 photograph!
Beneath the pavilion’s softened gentle, each season celebrates a brand new viewpoint.
Cassie’s colour palette subtly enhances the purple gentle poles representing ACC’s mascot, the Riverbats.
Each season is swoonworthy, however particularly in fall: aromatic, white-flowered almond verbena, frothy Gulf muhly, Lindheimer muhly, ‘Henry Duelberg’ salvia, and asters.
“Plenty of instances a park might need simply turf on the edges. We needed it to really feel extra wild and fuzzy and a nod to the native grasses,” Cassie mentioned. On one sidewalk, she combines sideoats grama, blue grama, Mexican feather grass, and switchgrass.
Alongside Hage Drive, little bluestem companions with state grass sideoats grama and blue grama. Once more, these grasses have crammed in fairly a bit since this shot.
“We love turning parking tons into parks and taking principally a dull, useless place and bringing life into it,” Cassie mentioned.
There’s nectar for pollinators and hummingbirds; berries for birds, and sure, even nectar for the bats!
“We will have a convocation right here. We will have gatherings. You may have a category right here. Another person might simply be having fun with their espresso, listening to the birds and watching the squirrels and seeing the grackles,” Dr. Malcolm mentioned. “After which, in fact, the attractive surroundings is right here.”
“You go from perhaps one hen, a grackle sort of pooping on everybody’s automobiles, to now, this type of cornucopia of species, this type of refuge,” Daniel added. “It’s been a very exceptional story of transformation.”
Plant record for St. John Encampment Commons
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