The Butler Landfill, on Stratford Drive in Zilker Park, was a City landfill from 1948 to 1967. Its clay cap is the barrier between the buried waste and the park, and the lower part of the waste sits in the water of Lady Bird Lake. Every fall, C3 Presents stages trucks and equipment for the Austin City Limits Music Festival on top of it. The City's 2025 ACL agreement allows that through 2040.
The Butler Landfill cap lies along Stratford Drive between MoPac and Lou Neff Road. The grass area with Y-shaped drive aisles is near MoPac; the gravel staging lot is to the east. Google Maps satellite view, annotated by Diana Prechter.
The engineer warned that the cap is weaker when wet
In 2022 a plastic paver grid ("Grass Pave") was installed under the drive aisles in the grass area. Scott Smiley, PE, of MIDCON Engineering, who designed the work, wrote to me on February 15, 2024:
"The grass areas are top soil on top of the clay cap so when dry can carry loads from vehicles. However, all of these materials are subject to changes in moisture and will reduce their strength when wet."
The City's environmental staff warned about long-term use
On August 1, 2023, Liz Johnston, the City's Environmental Officer, wrote:
"continued parking on the gravel long term could, over time, cause issues with the cap, which could lead to contamination of Lady Bird Lake."
ACL 2026 load-in went ahead in the rain
PARD's own event policy says half an inch of rain "will likely make park grounds unusable for event purposes of any nature." On October 1, 2026, the last load-in day, 1.30 to 1.46 inches fell, about three times that level. The ACL agreement says continuing an event during rain without City approval "is defacing of City property." In response to my public information request, the two City departments that manage the agreement located no record of any City approval to continue.
The City confirmed the damage
On November 2, 2026, John Clement of Austin Watershed Protection wrote to me:
"my understanding is that this damage happened during load-in for ACL, that APR and C3 were both aware of it and steps were taken at the time to prevent further damage."
October 31, 2026, two weeks after tear-down: the grass area of the cap, with bare regraded strips beside the drive aisle.
October 31, 2026: sections of the paver grid, dug out and piled with lumber and mulch at the east end of the cap. On November 2, the day after I asked Watershed Protection to inspect it, the pile was hauled away.
November 5: the paver grid is being replaced
This morning, a Clean Scapes Landscaping crew was laying new paver grid over bare soil on the cap. Clean Scapes is the same company that installed the original grid in 2022.
November 5, 2026, 9:13 am: a crew lays new paver grid over bare, regraded soil, with MoPac behind.
New rolls of paver grid, still wrapped, brought to the site.
Old grid rings in compacted, bare soil, with no grass growing in them.
On November 4, 2026, I submitted an allegation and audit request to the City Auditor on the ACL contract, the damage to Zilker Park, and park funds. Read the public copy of the audit request (PDF). Source documents are available on request.
I have filed a public information request (PIR #568) for the work order or contract, the cost, who paid for it, and any notice to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. TCEQ requires that development on a closed landfill be certified by an engineer to "not damage the integrity or function of a closed landfill." I have found no certification that covers ACL staging.
The question for the City is simple: if the cap is weaker when wet, and the City's own staff have warned about long-term use, should the City keep staging ACL on it every year through 2040? At minimum, the City should require an independent engineering evaluation of the cap every year, and no staging when it is wet.
Diana Prechter, November 5, 2026. Photos by Diana Prechter.
This is the last of ten posts on the 2026 rehabilitation of the Barton Springs Pool Bathhouse. Here’s what sits at the center of all of them. This post is a summary of my findings, based on extensive public information requests and on having used the women's dressing area before it was altered and its 1946 features destroyed.
In 2018, the designer, architect Laurie Limbacher, framed two choices for the Rotunda entrance area and the adjoining basket room: condition only the staff and aquatics offices moving into the basket room, and leave the Rotunda entrance area unconditioned, as it had been in the past — or keep the lifeguard and lifesaving offices in their existing, crowded spot in the women’s dressing area, and open up the basket room and Rotunda for Barton Springs Conservancy’s (BSC) donor-funded exhibits and an educational classroom.
Limbacher’s contract, executed in January–February 2018, made the project’s scope contingent on a separate effort to relocate the Sheffield Education Center and Splash! exhibit out of the Bathhouse. That relocation never happened.
What got built was neither of the two original choices. The lifeguard and lifesaving offices never moved — they stayed in the women’s dressing area and are air-conditioned. The basket room was split between staff/storage and the educational classroom. And the Rotunda entrance area itself got HVAC too, for the exhibits. The result: more air-conditioned square footage than either choice called for, and more space carved out for exhibits and education instead of relocating those functions out of the bathhouse entirely.
What never happened was the women’s dressing area’s restoration to its 1946 footprint — the one feature every version of the plan had promised to the swimming public. This post documents how that happened, and who pushed for it.
Picture the alternative: Deep Eddy Pool's bathhouse, where visitors pass through an open, unconditioned Rotunda the way they did here in 1946 — rather than a museum of exhibits requiring HVAC around the clock.
My Conclusion
Barton Springs Conservancy helped private philanthropists make real, valuable cash donations to the Bathhouse Rehab Project. But there's no dollar figure for the additional cost BSC's influence imposed on the final design. BSC took a big risk to push final design choices — an air-conditioned Rotunda with museum-like electronic exhibits and a classroom — that don't align with the interests of the swimming public. Most significant for me: For all future generations of women, the experience of showering adjacent to an open-air grass-filled courtyard is gone forever, as are the sunny dressing stalls that supported winter swimming.
Yes, the completion of the Bathhouse Rehab has been delayed for over a year. But the effects of poor design decisions will last... forever.
(My complete library of primary documents is available: here.)
When Laurie Limbacher accepted the contract in early 2018, she stated that the Rotunda would be unconditioned space, except for new staff offices located in the 1946 women's basket area. Moving staff functions into the Rotunda would let the 1967 walls in the women's dressing area come down, returning the footprint to its 1946 volume. No one questioned that the showers and stalls were unique, historically valuable features. [source]
Excerpts from Limbacher's Jan. 2018 proposal letter [source]:
The Bathhouse Rehabilitation project is to be designed in full, and implemented in phased construction, with the specific construction phase scopes, budgets and schedules contingent upon funding and ongoing fundraising by the Barton Springs Conservancy, and also contingent upon theresolution of a separate effort to relocate the Sheffield Education Center and Splash! exhibit out of the bathhouse.
From the Zilker Park Bathhouse Zone Feasibility Study, we understand that the bulk of the bathhouse will be an unconditioned, open-air structure. The only areas under consideration for air-conditioning are the Aquatics offices, proposed for the future renovation of the original women's basket room area.
Rehabilitation of the historic Rotunda and dressing areas, including rehabilitation of historic materials and components.
The City’s 2016 funding agreement with Barton Springs Conservancy made the same expectation part of the project’s contract terms: the agreement called for “removing encroachments and opening the floor plan of the women’s dressing area, creating a Visitor’s Center, and upgrading the bathhouse with due respect for its architectural beauty and historic importance.” [excerpt] [full agreement]
In 2016-2017, BSC had explicitly fundraised anticipating a new Visitor and Education Center entirely outside of the Bathhouse. [source]
By Oct. 2018 — after community engagement with Stakeholders including Barton Springs Conservancy (BSC) — that vision was radically altered: the exhibits and classroom would remain in the Rotunda, be expanded, and require HVAC. The women's dressing area would be unchanged in footprint and radically changed with loss of important historic design features: the 1946-design of showers and stalls.
The Rotunda’s Design Was Passive Cooling, Not Air Conditioning
The Bathhouse’s architectural style was Streamline Moderne, an offshoot of Art Deco that emphasized horizontal lines and smooth, aerodynamic curves. The architect, Dan Driscoll [source], designed both the Deep Eddy and Barton Springs bathhouses to be low-slung and aligned to the contour of the land, fitting beneath the surrounding large trees, oriented north-south, with an open breezeway that drew water-cooled air passively through the entire building. The low-slung form was meant to blend into the natural surroundings — an approach later popularized in houses like Taliesin and Fallingwater, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright with horizontal lines, broad roofs, and open floor plans. These features were not only aesthetic; they took advantage of tree shade and cooled air and water.
The wisdom of passive cooling is now a lost design feature at the Bathhouse Rotunda.
A Timeline Guided My Analysis
The pivot point was summer 2018. By submitting public information requests, I created a timeline of studies, contracts, and community engagement. I learned that the Parks Department, Barton Springs Conservancy, and architect Laurie Limbacher had agreed on basic principles by Jan. 2018: the Rotunda would not be air conditioned, the vacated 1946 women's basket room would become staff offices and storage, and the women's dressing area would be "opened up" to restore its 1946 footprint and character. All parties had access to the 2016 Feasibility Report, which recommended that the historic character of the bathhouse — including the women's unique showers and dressing stalls — be preserved and "rehabilitated." [source]
The City’s Aug. 14, 2018 “Values” document for the project put the same expectation in the public’s words: among the stated values was to “Enjoy the two-story, naturally-ventilated volumes” of the Rotunda — contemporaneous confirmation that an unconditioned Rotunda was explicitly what the public was told it would get. [source]
Community Engagement Created a Pivot Point: Education and Privacy
The City's summary of community engagement can be found here: [source]
From the April 3, 2018 Kickoff Meeting (reported in the August 14, 2018 presentation):
(above) The Kick-Off Meeting noted this anonymous preference: "Keep education uses in the Rotunda -- not Aquatics. SPLASH! needs modernization." The need to search for an off-site location was not mentioned. The Rotunda's possible "educational uses" were seen as a competition for space with "Aquatics" (offices and needed storage). The final design shows a crowded combination of both uses. [source] with the lifeguard/manager offices unchanged. [source]
Evidence shows that Mike Cannatti, president of BSC, strongly preferred that the lifeguard offices not be relocated out of the women's dressing area. "The lifeguard shack needs to stay in the current space...." [source]
On Aug. 14, 2018, PARD’s “What We Heard”:
[source] Only "congestion in the women's restroom" had anything to do with restoring the women’s dressing area; the other two explained that the Rotunda would be used for education and exhibits -- and not the full complement of manager and lifeguard staff offices.
The Aug. 14, 2018 values emphasized two "values" that were destined to collide: An unconditioned open-air Rotunda would prove to be in conflict with "education for all." However, "privacy options for women" was not a value.
Though not a Value, the August 14, 2018 scope included "privacy options for women".
On two dates — Oct. 18, 2018 and Oct. 30, 2018 — three concepts for the women's dressing area were presented to the public and stakeholders. [source]
Surveys were conducted: 33 total people responded to the surveys. The highest ranked concept for the women's dressing area was Concept Plan 3, the design with the least privacy options for women:
.
Oct. 2018 — eight months after Limbacher's proposal for an "unconditioned Rotunda" was accepted and included in the executed contract — the designs showed: (1) An HVAC-conditioned Rotunda dedicated to electronic high-tech exhibits and a classroom. (2) No restoration of the 1946 footprint of the women's dressing area. (3) However, "women's privacy options" still allowed women to shower with views of the courtyard. All three 2018 women's concepts were superior to Limbacher's "preferred design" finally presented -- without further opportunity for public comment -- in Oct. 2019, one year later.
Women swimmers not only lost the restored, expanded dressing area they had been promised: They lost the "privacy war" and are now forced to shower behind a stone wall without view of the courtyard. The new 2019 "privacy solution" was neither a value expressed by the public nor a design concept previewed by the public. The "privacy solution" took the women swimmers by total surprise when Limbacher's 2019 preferred plan was finally made public: Oct. 2023, four years later.
The 2023 Limbacher construction document (above): Blue = HVAC conditioned areas.
Exhibit Details
Karen Kocher, BSC Board member and video content creator, would get the Splash! Exhibit to screen her Springs series for the next 50 years. (above) [source]
Barricaded behind the "privacy solution": Women's showers blocked by a solid stone wall.
Historic dressing stalls replaced by sinks and makeup mirrors.
1946 footprint not restored: About 1,000 SF smaller than men's dressing area.
The unique 1946 wet-dry 2-door showers: demolished. Now with LA Fitness-style showers.
Who Failed to Protect the Historic Design?
Neither Laurie Limbacher (architect, and a commissioner at the Texas Historical Commission) nor Kim McKnight (the Parks Department's director of Historic Preservation) acted to protect the design features of the women's dressing area. Both knew better.
As I said in 2024: the State of Texas Hotel Occupancy Tax — public funding — put over $14M in "historic preservation funds" toward destroying the historic design of the women's dressing area. An aesthetic that women and families had enjoyed for over 75 years was erased, without apology or explanation. My 2024 analysis on YouTube:
I suggest that the public direct their questions about the lost historic elements of the Bathhouse to CoA employee Kim McKnight, contact: Kim.McKnight@austintexas.gov
How Did This Happen?
I'm not alone in recognizing this failure of community engagement. The voice of "the many" was demoted — sometimes ignored outright even when it was the statistically larger preference, as with the preference for Concept #3 of the women's dressing area [source]— while Stakeholders, including the donors funding BSC, were given outsized influence. BSC -- with their $3.834M in final donations -- was given access to the process and influenced significant design choices, where the public was not. From the April 2018 Kickoff Meeting where the BSC's desire for education and a renewed SPLASH! exhibit were expressed, to an Oct. 11, 2018 PARD meeting where BSC was given a preview of the designs prior to other Stakeholders [source], BSC's preferences were solicited by PARD. By Nov. 20, 2018, BSC had selected their "preferred design". [source]
At the final Community Meeting #4 on Oct. 30, 2019 at the Zilker Botanical Garden, resident Eileen Kella pressed PARD on the engagement process itself: how many people had attended the earlier meetings, how representative that group was, why only about 21 people were being shown the proposed design, and why questions weren’t being taken from the whole crowd. Attendees were told a follow-up public meeting would be held Dec. 5, 2019. It never happened. [source] The final design wasn’t made public again until the City’s Oct. 24, 2023 presentation — four years later. [source] [2023 presentation] The Limbacher 2019 "preferred" bathhouse design had effectively been kept secret for four years. Construction/demolition began in March 2024, just five months after the public had been shown the design.
Here is how Laurie Limbacher's Jan. 2018 scope was altered after the 2018 community engagement with Stakeholders:
The Sheffield Education Center and Splash! exhibit would not be relocated.
The Rotunda became a museum-like exhibit area full of electronic displays, computers, and projection screens — adding expense, and HVAC, to the final project.
The women's dressing area would remain crowded (1,000 SF smaller than the men's dressing area) with block walls for "total privacy" while showering, destroying the aesthetic experience.
Historic design features of the women's dressing area — showers and sunny/warm winter dressing stalls — were demolished and those designs are now lost to posterity.
A survey of the general public had been conducted from April through July 2018, with 1,082 respondents. None of the above outcomes were statistically supported by the broad community survey. [source1] [source2]
The PARD 2018 survey demonstrated that the general public
had little-to-no interest in "Educational Elements."
They wanted the bathhouse rehab design to preserve the
"Historic Character" and "Outdoor/Natural Elements."
They most enjoyed "Open-air Space" and were most concerned
about preserving the "History/Architecture."
My conclusion: BSC paid to play. The general public — represented by 1,082 respondents — did not. BSC was given access and influence that radically modified the final design of the Bathhouse. The general public, however, are the taxpayers who contributed about $18M to the project's total cost of about $22M.
Note: The BSC "final donor list" (below) includes unverified "in-kind donations" as well as true cash contributions. BSC was allowed, by PARD contract, to add any names they wanted — at any funding level — as self-reported "in-kind" donations. [source]
I suggest that the public direct their questions about the exhibits/classroom and HVAC-conditioned Rotunda to BSC, contact: president@bartonspringsconservancy.org
What's Next?
I think the designers took a big risk. By departing from the Rotunda's historic function — an open-air, naturally ventilated space with staff functions inside it — and installing a museum-quality electronic exhibit area, the new logistics could create problems. The pool can draw over 11,000 visitors on a single day. Temperatures can top 100 degrees. HVAC can break down. Storage is needed for BSC volunteers' wheelbarrows and Watershed Protection Department equipment, and weekend trash must be stored away from rodents. Hours are long, with many winter hours after sunset with dressing areas in the dark. The electronic exhibits are expensive and need constant monitoring while open.
Operational cost: Two new FTE employees are needed as "exhibit interpreters." [source] PARD asked for 8 new FTE positions for the pool and bathhouse in FY26 and ALL were NOT FUNDED. [source]
The men's dressing area has an occupant load of 82 people; the women's dressing area allows 20 fewer people at 62 maximum [source]
As recently as March 2026, BSC's volunteer wheelbarrows and rakes were being stored in an emergency exit corridor. [source 1][source 2]
Rotunda enter-exit doors hold an occupancy = 1, possibly slowing passage time. [source]
People will be unhappy if the entry system leaves them outdoors in the heat too long.
Summer HVAC temperatures will struggle if the Rotunda's entry and exit doors stay open constantly.
If the HVAC fails, there are no operable windows.
The women's showers may be prone to mold, since light and airflow are more restricted than in the 1946 design.
The women's showers may feel unsafe, with no sight-lines to the dressing area's entry corridor or the courtyard.
Emergency egress could get confusing with gendered exit corridors — families could be separated trying to get from the pool through the Bathhouse exits in an emergency. [source]
Family restrooms have a history of being used to conceal drug use. The Bathhouse now has five of them. Can staff keep them clean and safe?
The Full Series
This is the tenth and final post in this series. In the order they were written and published:
PIR evidence shows that the bathhouse is coming in at a total cost of about $22M, including all aspects of design and construction (see below). As of today (09-23-2026), about $2M is "encumbered" (not spent) but dedicated to the completion of the project.
However, the completion has been postponed several times, and the current culprit appears to be the exhibits funded by Barton Springs Conservancy — total exhibit costs are internally estimated at $750,000, including $75,000 from Austin Water and a dedicated Watershed Protection Department "Exhibit Contribution" line of $290,750 in the City's own funding records, among other sources.
The bathhouse rehabilitation was originally contracted for completion by August 29, 2025. Internal emails obtained by public information requests show that a tentative date for the bathhouse grand opening is Oct. 17, 2026.
Even assuming the currently pending Change Order 11 is approved — pushing the contractor's completion date to on or about January 14, 2026 — that still puts the bathhouse rehab project at least nine months (about 276 days) past deadline by the time it opens.
The Exhibits
Internal emails and a project budget (below) help explain the current delays.
Here, Barton Springs Conservancy board member Karen Brimble anticipates a grand opening of the Bathhouse in October 2026:
Source (above): PIR #C330322
However, a City staff member is concerned that the Bathhouse might not be completed by the opening date:
Source (above): PIR #C330322
Encumbered funds show that money for the exhibits has not been fully paid out. The exhibits, as noted by Brimble above, are possibly dragging the project past another "completion due date."
The Bathhouse sits inside the Barton Creek floodplain. That fact alone shaped what the City's own 2016 feasibility study said should happen to the Exhibits and Education Center — and it didn't happen that way.
What the 2016 Feasibility Study Recommended
The study pointed out that Austin City Code (§25-7-96) limits new construction inside a floodplain to a narrow list of small structures — a restroom or bath facility, a concessions stand, a tool shed, or a pump house, each under 1,000 square feet. A real Visitor's Center, in other words, legally couldn't be built at the Bathhouse itself. It had to go somewhere above the flood hazard zone.
So the study recommended exactly that: a new, stand-alone Visitor's and Education Center of 6,000 to 8,000 square feet, located near the children's playscape parking lot, within 500 feet of the Bathhouse Rotunda. The recommendation combined the Visitor Center, the Sheffield Education Center, and the SPLASH! exhibit into this one new building — both to share infrastructure costs and to properly integrate education into the visitor experience of the park. The study's own 2016 budget estimate for that new building was $3.5–$5.5 million, on top of roughly $12 million estimated for the rest of the project (which didn't include a firm number yet for Rotunda and dressing-room rehabilitation).
What BSC Was Raising Money For
Barton Springs Conservancy's own 2016–2017 promotional fundraising video, “For the Love of the Springs,” showed this same concept: a stand-alone Visitor Education Center, entirely separate from the Bathhouse, with its own classroom/office/meeting-room wing and a “Splash and Theater Wing,” plus exhibits on energy, water conservation, weather, geology, and bird-viewing. The City's agreement with BSC for BSC's original $3,000,000 contribution to the project was reached in 2016 — the same year as this video.
What Got Built Instead
By October 2018, Limbacher's design concepts had already folded the education and exhibit functions into the Bathhouse's Rotunda rather than placing them in a new, off-site building — the same pivot away from the 2016 study's Sheffield Education Center relocation that Post #4 of this series asked the City about. The finished project — covered earlier in this series — shows extensive exhibit, audio-visual, and IT infrastructure built directly into the Rotunda, the adjoining exhibit hall, and the Sheffield Education Center, all inside the historic, floodplain-sited Bathhouse itself.
Questions for a journalist:
When was the plan for a separate, off-site Visitor and Education Center dropped, and by whom?
Given the floodplain construction limits the 2016 study cited, how was education and exhibit space ultimately permitted inside the Bathhouse rather than in the new off-site building the study said was needed?
Did donors who gave toward BSC's 2016 agreement know their money might end up funding education and exhibit space inside the Bathhouse, rather than the stand-alone Visitor Center shown in BSC's own fundraising materials?
Sources
2016 Zilker Park Bathhouse Zone Feasibility Study (City of Austin Parks + Recreation Department / MWM DesignGroup), pages 40–41 and 54. Barton Springs Conservancy promotional video, “For the Love of the Springs” (vimeo.com/216682712).
Source: The Parks Department reported, in the Community Engagement Summary, "What we heard": "congestion in the women's restroom."
In 2024, when the City broke ground on the Bathhouse rehab, I and about twenty fellow protesters showed up with signs reading "$14M to DESTROY the historic women's dressing area."
The City's own 2016 feasibility study for this project suggests that we had a point.
What the 2016 Feasibility Study Recommended
The study laid out a four-phase plan for the Bathhouse. Phase 3 called for relocating the pool's Aquatics operations — offices, maintenance, and storage — into a new, consolidated facility, freeing up the "former women's basket area." Phase 4 then built on that: with Aquatics out of the way, "the women's changing room could be restored to approximately its original size and configuration," preserving the historic character of the space while addressing maintenance problems and better accommodating modern privacy needs.
The same section recommended restoring elements of the historic "basket room" configuration — tall open volumes with natural ventilation and clerestory daylighting — and suggested that a restored portion of the space could even host interpretive displays for pool visitors.
This wasn't a minor aside: at the City's own August 2018 community meeting, "congestion in the women's restroom" was one of only three things listed in the summary of what the City heard from the public.
The City's 2016 funding agreement with Barton Springs Conservancy made the same expectation part of the project's contract terms: the agreement called for "removing encroachments and opening the floor plan of the women's dressing area, creating a Visitor's Center, and upgrading the bathhouse with due respect for its architectural beauty and historic importance." [source]
What Got Built Instead
By October 2018, Limbacher's design concepts already showed staff functions intruding into the women's dressing area — not receding from it. And per the project's own occupant-load calculations (Sheet T1.02, dated April 26, 2023), the final built space is still lopsided: the Men's Shower/dressing area totals 4,101 square feet (occupant load 82), while the Women's Shower/dressing area totals 3,098 square feet (occupant load 62) — a gap of 1,003 square feet, and 20 fewer people the women's side is rated to hold.
That gap lines up with a finding from Post #4 of this series: the Aquatics facilities that the 2016 study wanted relocated out of the women's area don't appear to have moved at all — they're still carved out of the women's dressing area, in roughly the same footprint as before. If Aquatics never left, the space the 2016 study intended to free up for the women's changing room was never actually freed.
The 2019 outcome wasn't only a missed restoration — for the women's dressing area specifically, it was a step backward from what the public had already been shown in 2018. In an October 2018 survey, Limbacher's office circulated three design concepts for the women's dressing area; all three kept at least some shower stalls facing the grass courtyard, and all three kept some version of the historic winter dressing stalls. [source] The 2019 "preferred design" that followed kept neither: no showers face the courtyard at all (aside from one or two unenclosed "pole showers" with no privacy option), and the sunny winter dressing stalls were replaced by four makeup sinks and mirrors. [source]
Questions for a journalist:
Since Aquatics operations were not relocated as the 2016 study recommended, is that why the women's changing area could not be restored to its original size?
Why is the women's dressing/shower area more than 1,000 square feet smaller than the men's in the final, built design?
Did the City consider any alternative that would have restored the historic size and configuration of the women's changing room, as its own 2016 study recommended?
Why did the 2019 "preferred design" eliminate even the courtyard-facing showers and winter dressing stalls that the 2018 concepts had kept?
Sources
2016 Zilker Park Bathhouse Zone Feasibility Study (City of Austin Parks + Recreation Department / MWM DesignGroup), Recommendations section, pages 50–54; the women's-changing-room recommendation is also excerpted separately here. Sheet T1.02, "Design Data" / Occupant Loads table, 100% Construction Design Intent Document set, Limbacher & Godfrey Architects, April 26, 2023 — full sheet. Austin Parks and Recreation Department, Bathhouse Rehab Community Engagement Summary (final, Dec. 3, 2019) — full document. City of Austin and Barton Springs Conservancy, Funds Contribution Agreement for Bathhouse Renovation Project (signed Aug. 16, 2016) — full agreement.
On a hot Austin summer day, shade temperatures can reach 104 degrees. Visitors queue outside, and as the line moves, they will eventually reach the Rotunda — the rehabilitated Bathhouse's new, air-conditioned entrance.
The architects' own construction documents suggest that keeping that queue orderly, and that air conditioning intact, may be harder than it sounds.
What the Plans Say
Sheet T1.02 of the 100% Construction Documents (Limbacher & Godfrey Architects, dated April 26, 2023) contains the project's Occupant Loads table — the code-required calculation of how many people each room is allowed to hold. For Room 4, the Rotunda, using the standard assembly-space factor of one person per 30 square feet, the table calculates an occupant load of 13 people for the Rotunda's 381 square feet. The adjoining Transaction and Passage areas are each calculated separately, at 1 person apiece. The Exhibits area has an occupant load of 25 people. Several of these people need to be CoA staff.
Occupant Loads table, Sheet T1.02, Zilker Metro Park Barton Springs Bathhouse Rehabilitation, April 26, 2023.
It is my understanding that the entire Rotunda is conditioned space with inoperable windows. In other words, there's no cracking a window for airflow — the Rotunda depends entirely on mechanical air conditioning, and its only connections to the outside air are its doors.
The Operational Question
That leaves the building's daily operation to reconcile a 13-person occupancy limit inside the Rotunda and 25-person occupancy of the Exhibits with a queue of visitors outside in well over 100-degree heat, every one of them eager to step into the air conditioning.
Questions for a journalist:
How will the Rotunda's 13-person occupancy limit be maintained when visitors are eager to step inside to feel the air conditioning? Similarly for the Exhibit's 25-person occupancy limit?
If the entry door is not closed between each visitor — and is instead propped open — how does the operational plan account for the resulting loss of air conditioning?
Who is responsible for monitoring the number of visitors inside the Rotunda to ensure compliance with the stated occupancy limit?
Sources
Sheet T1.02, “Design Data” / Occupant Loads table, from the 100% Construction Design Intent Document set for the Zilker Metro Park Barton Springs Bathhouse Rehabilitation (Limbacher & Godfrey Architects, April 26, 2023; City contract CSP 6100 CLMB341 / CIP 6066.035). Source: CSP_6100_CLMB341_PLANS_v1.pdf; full sheet also available as “BSBH Cover page 2 Occupant loads.pdf”.
Barton Springs Conservancy (BSC) — the nonprofit partner that helped raise private funding for the Bathhouse rehab and the new exhibits — has flagged two operational concerns to the City in emails obtained through public information requests: staffing to run the rehabilitated Bathhouse, and storage for the tools and equipment BSC's volunteers use to maintain the springs. Neither appears to have a clear, current public answer.
1. Staffing
In July 2025, BSC president Mike Cannatti wrote to PARD Assistant Director Lucas Massie, following up on what he called “a pressing matter now that we are in the budget season.”
(Above) Mike Cannatti (BSC) to Lucas Massie (PARD Assistant Director), July 19, 2025.
Cannatti's understanding was that PARD's own budget submission to the City Manager's office had included five new FTEs in each of the next three fiscal years (FY26–28): building and grounds assistants to operate, manage, and clean the rehabilitated bathhouse grounds, plus exhibit staff — cultural and arts education specialists, exhibit specialists — to staff and maintain the new education exhibits at the central rotunda. Roughly speaking, he estimated, this would cost just under $2 million, staggered over four years. Cannatti also wrote that BSC understood the City Manager's proposed budget had not included that requested staffing funding, and that BSC wanted to raise the gap with City Council during that summer's budget deliberations.
That was the summer of 2025. The current answer to the Bathhouse staffing needs should be found in the City's FY2027 budget.
Questions for a journalist:
Has the CoA sufficiently budgeted for staff?
How many additional staff positions are needed for the new Bathhouse rehab?
2. Storage
In March 2026, Cannatti raised a second, more concrete concern: where BSC's volunteers were supposed to store their own equipment.
(Above) BSC explains the lack of storage for volunteer equipment — Mike Cannatti to Ellen Colfax (PARD) and David Polkinghorn, March 24, 2026.
(Above) CoA's Ellen Colfax replies — March 25, 2026.
Colfax acknowledged the problem — volunteers' tools, wheelbarrows, and ladders had been stacking up in the emergency exit hall, which she confirmed isn't allowed — and said Aquatics staff would move the wheelbarrows to a fenced area behind the café. A permanent solution for the rest of the equipment, she wrote, was still being worked out. By Sept. 23rd, 2026, there had been little progress on solving the BSC's storage needs. [source]
Questions for a journalist:
Has the CoA found a permanent storage location for BSC's volunteer equipment at or near the Bathhouse?
After coordinating donations of over $3.5M for the Bathhouse rehab project, why did the designers neglect to create storage for the BSC's tools, wheelbarrows and ladders?
Sources
Emails obtained through City of Austin public information requests: the staffing thread (Cannatti to Massie, July 19, 2025, forwarded to Jesus Aguirre July 21, 2025) via PIR #249, and the storage thread (Cannatti to Colfax and Polkinghorn, March 24–25, 2026) via PIR #507: original message and Colfax's reply.
