In 2026, at least 9 months past due: Difficulties with the exhibits at the Barton Springs Pool Bathhouse

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."

Source (above): PIR #C330131

Missed Opportunities - Exhibits and Education Center Did Not Get a New Building Off-site of the Bathhouse

Post #8 in a series

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).

Missed Opportunities - Women's Dressing Area Not Restored to Historic Design

Post #7 in a series

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.

Possible operational issues: Questions about the occupancy limits of the Rotunda, and air conditioning

Post #6 in a series

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”.

Two Concerns of Barton Springs Conservancy - Staffing and Storage

Post #5 in a series

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.

Questions: Has the current Limbacher design satisfied all objectives?

Post #4 in a series

The Scope of Services for the Joan Means Khabele Bathhouse rehab design contract (RFQS_6100_CLMP223) laid out seven objectives. Four of them are not immediately apparent to the public eye.

“Objectives of the Project,” City of Austin Scope of Services, RFQS_6100_CLMP223, Revision Date 10/01/15.

It would be helpful if City staff could explain each of the four boxed and highlighted objectives above, including answers to these questions:

• Life safety egress — Are there 25 linear feet of north-side egress in the event of an emergency?
• How was the location of the Exhibits and Education Center decided?
• Relocated and expanded Aquatics Facilities with storage for WPD salamander biologist equipment: have the storage needs of CoA staff been met?
• The new parking lot: please explain in terms of impervious cover requirements of the entire site.

1. Life Safety Egress

The Scope calls for “Life Safety Egress, ADA accessibility and automated entry improvements to the Bathhouse and related Barton Springs Pool perimeter.” The City's own 2016 Feasibility Study had already spelled out why this mattered, in fairly blunt terms: “At present, the number and location of emergency exits from the north side of the pool are conspicuously deficient with respect to the requirements of the Building Code… the north side of the pool should be provided per code with not less than four means of egress, with a total width of not less than 25'.” The same study noted that state pool regulations require every door, gate, and window in the pool enclosure to be either staffed or locked, which is why it recommended that egress points double as supervised entry points — and separately, that a required means of egress cannot be gender-segregated, nor located in an area that is.

Put together, that's a specific, checkable standard: at least four emergency exits from the north side of the pool, totaling 25 feet of width or more, each one supervised, and none of them split by gender.

Has the completed design met it?

2. The Sheffield Education Center and SPLASH! Exhibit Location

The Scope calls for the design team to “Determine Sheffield Education Center/SPLASH! Exhibit Location and related Remodel.” But the 2016 Feasibility Study's Recommendations section (covered in Post #2 of this series) didn't leave that question open — it concluded that relocating the Sheffield Education Center off-site was “the most viable means” of protecting its educational programs from the next flood, and that a relocated Center could be combined with a new Visitor's Center for the park. That's not what happened: the Education Center and the SPLASH! exhibit both remain inside the Bathhouse.

Who decided to keep them there, and why wasn't the 2016 study's recommendation followed?

3. Aquatics Facilities and WPD Storage

The Scope calls for “Relocated and expanded Aquatics Facilities with storage for WPD salamander biologist equipment within the Bathhouse.” Two things about that are worth checking.

First, the Aquatics space doesn't appear to have moved — it's still carved out of the women's dressing area, in roughly the same footprint as before. Why wasn't it relocated?

Second, the objective specifically promises storage space for the Watershed Protection Department's salamander biologists. Did WPD actually get that storage?

4. Parking Lot Reconfiguration and Site Improvements

The Scope calls for the design to coordinate with “Parking lot Reconfiguration and Site Improvements.”

Please explain the new parking lot in terms of the alterations in the ratio of pervious-to-impervious cover of the entire site, including the Bathhouse.

Sources

These questions are drawn directly from two City documents: the Scope of Services for the design contract (RFQS_6100_CLMP223, “Objectives of the Project,” Revision Date 10/01/15) and the 2016 Zilker Park Bathhouse Zone Feasibility Study (City of Austin Parks + Recreation Department / MWM DesignGroup), both obtained through public information requests. None of the four questions above has a public answer yet.

What the Visitor Encounters Entering the New Rotunda: An Inventory of the 2023 Electronics Program

Post #3 in a series

You've come to Barton Springs Pool, bathing suit and towel in hand. You enter through the restored historic Rotunda.

Below is a room-by-room inventory of the audio-visual and IT hardware built into the Rotunda, the adjoining exhibit hall, and the Beverly S. Sheffield Education Center — drawn directly from the exhibit designer's 2023 equipment schedule.

The known price tag for the exhibits — the equipment, design, fabrication, and installation — totaled at least $750,000, though the total cost is unknown.

• Barton Springs Conservancy — $384,000 (private philanthropic dollars)
• Watershed Protection Department (Salamander Fund) — $291,000 (public dollars)
• Water Department — $75,000 (public dollars)

Source Note

This inventory is drawn from a single sheet in the construction document set for the Zilker Metro Park Barton Springs Bathhouse Rehabilitation (City contract CSP 6100 CLMB341 / CIP 6066.035): sheet WF15.2, titled “Splash! Interpretive Experience — Audio Visual/Information Technology Inventory Draft,” prepared by the exhibit design firm FD2S Inc. (Austin, TX) and dated April 26, 2023, as part of the “100% Construction Design Intent Document” set. It is explicitly labeled a draft — a design-phase budget estimate, not a confirmed as-purchased invoice. Actual equipment and pricing may have changed by the time of installation.

Source: CSP_6100_CLMB341_PLANS_v1.pdf.

The three sections below follow the order a visitor moves through the building: into the Rotunda first, then the adjoining exhibit hall, then the Beverly S. Sheffield Education Center classroom space.

1. The Rotunda

Three installations, totaling $55,887 in listed hardware.

Bulkhead Projection Surface (AV-R3) — $37,156. A Christie D20HD-HS large-venue laser projector with a Christie 0.84–1.02:1 zoom lens, driven by a dedicated Windows 10 PC. It projects onto what the drawings call a “bulkhead” — a printed graphic wall surface with a designated live-video area built into it.

Digital Scrapbook (AV-R2) — $11,347. An Ideum 43″ inline touchscreen paired with a Windows 10 PC, plus a second, non-touch LG 43UH5F-H digital signage display run by a BrightSign LS424 media player, showing historical photographs and related content.

Video Docent Kiosk (AV-R1) — $7,384. An Ideum 43″ inline touch display with a commercial-grade (24/7-rated) Chromebox for playback, and a handset speaker visitors pick up to hear narrated audio — functioning like an audio-tour stop.

2. The Exhibit Space

Four installations. The individually itemized line items sum to $89,344; the sheet's own section header separately states the exhibit space's hardware total as $167,536. That roughly $78,000 difference isn't explained by anything legible on the sheet — it may reflect cost categories (cabling/infrastructure, engineering, installation labor, additional contingency) not broken out in the itemized rows, or a line item obscured in the drawing. Both figures are reported here as they appear in the source.

“Swim with the Salamanders” (AV-EX3) — $51,981. An 11-panel LG 49VL5G-M video wall (one panel held as a spare), run by three Datapath FX4 4K video-wall decoders and a high-spec Windows 10 PC, with a Microsoft Kinect Azure motion-tracking camera reading visitors' movement, two Crestron ceiling speakers, and a Crestron AMP-X300 amplifier.

“Watershed Model” (AV-EX2) — $26,711. An Epson Pro L1505UHNL large-venue laser projector onto a physical model, an Elo Touch E146266 open-frame touchscreen, a medium-spec Windows 10 PC, a Crestron NVX-360 video extender/receiver pair, and a handset speaker.

“Protection Lands” (AV-EX1) — $7,384. An Ideum 43″ inline touch display, a 24/7-rated commercial Chromebox for playback, and a handset speaker.

“Ceiling Scrim” (AV-EX4) — $3,268. A custom addressable RGB LED lighting installation, an Intel NUC mini-PC for playback, a Crestron pendant speaker, a Crestron AMP-X300 amplifier, and a Crestron relay.

3. The Beverly S. Sheffield Education Center

Two installations, totaling $22,303.

“Curricula-based Display” (AV-ED2) — $20,572. A 55″ Ideum inline touchscreen driven by a full Crestron control-room setup: an NVX-360 video switcher, a 7″ LCD control panel, an HDMI input panel, an AM3200 wireless video input, and a CP4 control processor, plus two ceiling speakers, an amplifier, and a low-spec Windows 10 PC. Relative to its size, this is the single most electronics-dense installation in the building.

“Salamander Aquarium” (AV-ED1) — $1,731. An Elo Touch E146266 23″ display, a BrightSign LS424 media player, and a handset speaker.

Totals

Space	Hardware total (as itemized)
Rotunda	$55,887
Exhibit Space	$89,344 (sheet header states $167,536 — see note above)
Sheffield Education Center	$22,303
Combined (itemized figures)	$167,534

Across all three spaces, the single most expensive individually-identifiable device is the $51,981 11-panel LG video wall in “Swim with the Salamanders” — the largest hardware commitment of any one exhibit in the building.

The Design Options Shown to the Public

Post #2 in a series

Below is a sequence of design images related to the Joan Means Khabele Bathhouse rehabilitation project, shown in chronological order.

1946 Plan

City of Austin, Barton Springs Bathhouse Rehabilitation Design Update presentation, October 30, 2019 (slide labeled “1946 PLAN”).

2016 Feasibility Study Recommendations

Source: Zilker Park Bathhouse Zone Feasibility Study, City of Austin Parks + Recreation Department, MWM DesignGroup, June 10, 2016.

1. Cover Page
“Zilker Park Bathhouse Zone Feasibility Study,” City of Austin Parks + Recreation Department, MWM DesignGroup, June 10, 2016.

2. Recommendation: Phase 1 – Life Safety and Access Improvements
From Section VII, Recommendations, 1. Bathhouse Rehabilitation, a) Phase 1: Life Safety and Access Improvements.

3. Recommendation: Phase 4 – Rehabilitation of Rotunda and Changing Areas
From Section VII, Recommendations, 1. Bathhouse Rehabilitation, d) Phase 4: Rehabilitation of Rotunda and Changing Areas.

4. Recommendation: Sheffield Education Center Improvements
From Section VII, Recommendations, 2. Sheffield Education Center Improvements.

5. Bathhouse Projects, Phase Four (site diagram)
Zilker Park Bathhouse Zone Feasibility Study, site diagram.

A Vision Plan Created by Barton Springs Conservancy, 2016–2017

A Conceptual Vision for a Visitor Education Center
Barton Springs Conservancy promotional video, “BSC – For the Love of the Springs” (One Story Productions), vimeo.com/216682712.

Visitor Education Center – Exhibit Detail
Barton Springs Conservancy promotional video, “BSC – For the Love of the Springs” (One Story Productions), vimeo.com/216682712.

Prior to Bathhouse Rehab: Existing Floor Plan

City of Austin, Barton Springs Bathhouse Rehabilitation Design Update presentation, October 30, 2019.

2019: Limbacher's Final Preferred Scheme

City of Austin, Barton Springs Bathhouse Rehabilitation Design Update presentation, October 30, 2019.

For Comparison: Limbacher's 2008 Proposal

The 2019 designs above came from architect Laurie Limbacher. Limbacher had also proposed a bathhouse design more than a decade earlier, shown to the public in 2008.

Limbacher’s proposed design in 2008
Barton Springs Pool Master Plan, 2008. See the annotated version.

Introducing: The 2026 Barton Springs Pool Bathhouse Rehab Project

Post #1 in a series

I'll be using my public information request (PIR) research to share with the general public what I've learned about the Joan Means Khabele Bathhouse rehabilitation project at Barton Springs Pool. This series will cover:

• The costs — how much public and private money has gone into this project, and where it came from.
• The design options shown to the public, side by side:
  • (a) the 1946 original historic plan, which the rehab project promised to restore the "character and quality" of;
  • (b) the 2008 Limbacher Master Plan (bathhouse section);
  • (c) a 2016–2017 Barton Springs Conservancy (BSC) design for a new stand-alone visitor center to hold BSC storage, exhibits, and an education center;
  • (d) the concepts Austin stakeholders rated highest in an October 2018 values workshop — Rotunda Concept 4.2, Women's Concept 3, Men's Concept 1 — later shown again at an October 2019 design-update meeting;
  • (e) the full 2024 architectural plans that were actually built.
• Select project objectives compared to what was actually delivered.
• Possible operational issues, including: safety egress during an emergency evacuation of the entire north pool's visitors; Rotunda air conditioning with an entrance/exit door sized for one person at a time; and staff and City of Austin employee storage shortages.
• The donor plaque issue — revisiting the project's costs.

This project had a completion deadline of November 30, 2025 — the Final Completion date set by the City's own Change Order 10. As of this post, we are roughly 292 days past that deadline, and the Grand Opening is now scheduled for mid-October 2026.

The Costs

(1) How much public money has been invested in the bathhouse?

$18,315,781

• 2012 Bond (Prop 14) — $2,098,100
• 2018 Bond (Prop C) — $257,871
• Historic Preservation Fund (Hotel Occupancy Tax) — $14,718,060
• Austin Water — $75,000
• Austin Watershed Protection Dept. / Salamander Conservation Fund — $290,750
• Zilker Parking Fees — $311,000
• Council Appropriation, Adult Changing Table (FY24) — $100,000
• One-Time General Fund Transfer to CIP (FY23) — $465,000

Source: City PIR response, PIR #C201348-110123.

(2) How much came from private donations?

$3,834,000 — all from Barton Springs Conservancy (BSC).

Source: City fiscal-note record, PIR #C332202-090226 (5 recorded BSC payments, 2019–2025); see also the City's EDIMS fiscal-note record for the underlying $3,000,000 + $384,000 BSC agreement. Independently confirmed: BSC's own website states its private fundraising total is “$3,384,000” (BSC hasn't yet updated its site for the 5th, 2025 payment).

(3) Total for the bathhouse rehab?

$22,149,781 ($18,315,781 public + $3,834,000 private)

Note: the City's own original PIR #3 summary put the full-project total at $21,699,781 — that figure used BSC's earlier $3,384,000 total, before the 5th, $450,000 payment (January 2025) came to light. The $22,149,781 figure above reflects that later correction.

(4) How much did BSC fund, and are we sure about that amount?

$3,834,000. Yes — confirmed by the City's fiscal records.

A City-provided funding summary I received separately still shows BSC's total as $3.38M; it hasn't been updated for this $450K payment, which the City's own fiscal-note record (via a separate records request) confirms was recorded in January 2025.

All private donations to the project passed through BSC.

(5) How much is being spent on interpretation and exhibits?

Unknown.

Here's what is known: BSC paid $384,000 toward the exhibits (per PIR #C332202-090226), and two City sources — the Salamander Conservation Fund ($291,000) and Austin Water ($75,000) — add another $366,000. Combined, that's $750,000 in known dollars connected to the exhibits. It is unknown whether taxpayers contributed additional dollars, beyond this $750,000 of combined private and public money, toward the exhibits.

No one has publicly disclosed a total exhibits cost. Also unknown: what portion of the Rotunda A/C upgrade — which a 2023 cost-cutting proposal recommended dropping, but which was ultimately kept — should be attributed to exhibit needs versus general building comfort.

The POMA Model: Is Zilker Park Next?

 By Diana Prechter, Austin parks advocate

This is the third piece in a series on how Austin is handing the operation of its public parks to private nonprofits. The first two looked at The Trail Conservancy and Town Lake Metropolitan Park. This one looks ahead — to the next wave of these deals, and to the park that may be the biggest prize of all: Zilker.

The City has already named who's next

On October 16, 2024, PARD Director Angela Means put it in writing. In a memo to the Parks Board directing an audit of the City's park-nonprofit agreements, she wrote: "In collaboration with the City's Law Department, PARD continues to draft and negotiate partnership agreements. Agreements in development include the Zilker Botanical Garden Conservancy, Fruitful Commons, and the Austin Parks Foundation." So the City is, by its own account, drafting a POMA-style agreement with the Austin Parks Foundation (APF).

Why APF is a different kind of park nonprofit

Most park conservancies are donor-funded. The Central Park Conservancy — the nation's largest — draws about 64% of its revenue from contributions and only about 17% from earned or event income (fiscal year ending June 2025), and its contributions have run between 57% and 81% every year since 2021. APF's revenue mix is nearly the reverse. In 2024, roughly 76% of APF's revenue — about $9.3 million of $12.3 million — came from a single commercial event, the Austin City Limits (ACL) Music Festival, with only about 21% from donations. (Both figures come straight from the organizations' IRS 990s.) APF is, in practice, a festival-revenue operation that also does park philanthropy — the opposite of the donation-funded model the public usually pictures when it hears "parks foundation."

That matters because the POMA model rewards exactly this. The template contractually pushes the partner to maximize commercial revenue from public parkland. A nonprofit whose budget already runs on a giant commercial festival is uniquely built to do that — and uniquely dependent on being allowed to.

The Zilker connection

Zilker is a 351-acre metropolitan park — large, iconic, and long overdue for a park-wide plan. The City tried to make one: the Zilker Park Vision Plan. It was halted in August 2023 (the interim City Manager suspended it after Mayor Watson and several Council members opposed it) and never came to a vote. A major public objection at the time was the fear that a nonprofit/conservancy model would prioritize commercial interests and mega-donors over the broader community and the rest of the park system.

Meanwhile, APF already dominates the commercial life of Zilker Park. ACL — the festival that funds three-quarters of APF's budget — is held in Zilker, now under a 15-year City contract. APF also operates the Zilker Eagle train. And there is a direct organizational link between APF and the community nonprofit forming around Zilker's future: Colin Wallis, the CEO of the Austin Parks Foundation, sits on the board of Zilker 351, the nonprofit created to shape the park's next chapter.

The reasonable inference — and the honest caveat

Put those pieces together — a planned APF partnership agreement, APF's existing commercial hold on Zilker (it runs both ACL and the Zilker Eagle train there), APF's own CEO on the Zilker 351 board, and a 351-acre park that still has no adopted plan — and it is a reasonable concern that APF's anticipated POMA could designate Zilker as the acreage it operates, maintains, and commercializes. 

There's a fiscal motive, too: Zilker's maintenance cost the Parks Department about $2.6 million in FY25, and a POMA would move that expense off its books. To be clear, this is an inference, not a signed contract — Zilker 351 says it "has not yet established a partnership agreement" and that the Parks Department "will continue to manage, operate, and oversee Zilker Park," and no POMA assigning Zilker to APF has been made public. But every one of these pieces is on the public record, and residents deserve a clear answer about whether Zilker is headed toward such a contract before any deal is finalized.

Why it should concern the public

The worry is the same one that stopped the Zilker Park Vision Plan in 2023, now arriving through a different door. If Austin hands O&M and commercial rights over its most-used park to a nonprofit that already earns most of its money by commercializing that same park, the incentives all point one way: more revenue-generating activity on public land, decisions about the park's future made by a private board rather than an accountable public body, and festival and concession dollars flowing to a nonprofit's priorities instead of the City's General Fund and the park system as a whole. 

In Chicago, festival revenue from Lollapalooza is paid to the elected Chicago Park District; in Minneapolis, an elected Park Board runs operations while its foundation only fundraises. Austin is on a path to route that money -- and that authority -- through a private nonprofit instead. The public should get to weigh that trade-off — in the open, and before the contract is signed.

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Sources

All figures come from the City's own records and the organizations' public filings:

• "Agreements in development" list: Director Angela Means memo to the Parks Board, October 16, 2024. → memo
• APF revenue mix (~76% from ACL): Austin Parks Foundation FY2024 IRS Form 990 (ProPublica).
• Central Park Conservancy revenue mix (FY ending June 2025): Central Park Conservancy IRS Form 990 (ProPublica).
• Zilker acreage (351 acres) and Colin Wallis (APF CEO) on the Zilker 351 board: zilker351.org.
• Zilker Park Vision Plan halted August 2023: Austin Monitor; Austin American-Statesman.
• Zilker Park Maintenance in FY25 = $2.6M. (CoA Expense Open Budget)

Diana Prechter is an Austin parks advocate who researches City of Austin park-partnership agreements through public records.

A Case Study: The Trail Conservancy: A $1 Million Park, a $5 Million Nonprofit (The Trade-Off)

 By Diana Prechter, Austin parks advocate

In a companion piece I described how Austin hands primary responsibility for its public parks to private nonprofits while keeping the land publicly owned — the model the City calls a "Level-A Partnership." Here I want to put real dollars on that trade-off, using the City's own records, for the biggest example of all: The Trail Conservancy (TTC) and the 295-acre Town Lake Metropolitan Park.

What it costs the City to maintain the whole park

In 2022, APR's own partnership program manager, Christine Chute-Canul, put the Parks Department's annual cost of maintaining the entire park in writing to then-Director Kimberly McNeeley. Her figure: roughly $975,349 a year — covering, in her words, "everything except reconditioning of the main trail." Including trail reconditioning, the all-in figure was about $1,121,664. So by the City's own reckoning, the entire park could be operated and maintained for on the order of $1 million a year. That $975,349 is a 2022 figure for maintaining the whole park; under the POMA, TTC is set to become the primary maintenance party for most of it by Phase 3, around 2032.

What the nonprofit takes in

The Trail Conservancy is not a small operation. Its most recent audited financial statements (for the year ended December 31, 2025) report total revenue of $5,147,039 — more than five times the City's own estimated cost of maintaining the whole park. Nearly all of it is grants and contributions (about $4.3 million) plus net special-events income ($640,799). TTC's revenue was higher still in 2024 — $7.8 million — lifted by the Seaholm capital campaign.

Note: The concession revenue alone — the once-public dollars now flowing through TTC from the Town Lake boating concessions — is estimated at roughly $690,000 for FY26, by itself approaching the City's entire annual cost of maintaining the park.

Rising costs for park users

When a nonprofit's business model replaces the Parks Department's, the price the public pays is no longer capped by the department's public-service mandate. The memorial bench is a small but telling example. For years the City ran a Memorial Bench Program that let any resident commemorate a loved one with an engraved plaque on a park bench — and in 2021 the Parks Board even endorsed a Commission on Seniors recommendation to add more of them. At that time, permanently adopting a City park bench cost about $2,400.

Instead of expanding it, the City paused the program. Austin Parks Department has no bench program. Today the only park bench program on the trail is run by The Trail Conservancy — available in just two locations, on boardwalks and bridges. Its cost to dedicate a bench: $15,000 for a 10-year term, or $30,000 in perpetuity. A $2,400 civic gesture has become a $15,000-to-$30,000 one.

Where a portion of it goes

TTC's most recent publicly available IRS Form 990 (fiscal year 2024) lists its highest-paid staff by name:

• Hanna Cofer, Interim CEO (about 5 months) — $144,864 (plus $13,381 in other compensation)
• Kimberly McNeeley, CEO (about 6 months) — $120,130 (plus $5,854)
• Jessica Stewart, Chief Development Officer — $119,838 (plus $11,847)
• Grady Reed, VP of Park Operations — $112,101 (plus $12,539)
• Mandi Thomas, Chief Marketing Officer — $110,905 (plus $12,469)

That is five six-figure earners in a single year (two of them CEOs serving only part of the year during a leadership transition), out of total salaries, compensation, and benefits of $1,900,356.

The 990 also raises a governance flag. TTC reports that it has a written conflict-of-interest policy — yet on the same return it discloses a related-party deal. A paid outside fundraising consultant, Sarah Story ("Sarah Story Consulting"), was paid $100,000 to serve as "Project Campaign Manager" on a fundraising campaign that took in $2.8 million (she was paid $100,000; TTC kept the remaining $2.7 million). She is not on TTC's board or staff — but the 990's Schedule L ("Transactions with Interested Persons") discloses that she is a family member of one of TTC's officers, directors, or key employees, which is what makes the payment a related-party transaction. Separately, a member of TTC's own board of directors, Ashley Fisher, was paid $35,000 — board members are ordinarily uncompensated volunteers. Neither is necessarily improper, but both are exactly the kind of related-party detail the public deserves to weigh — and neither is visible anywhere the City reports on the partnership.

The trade-off, in plain terms

• The Parks Department's cost to maintain the entire 295 acres of Town Lake Metropolitan Park is about $1M a year. To drop this from its budget by 2032, it has awarded a POMA contract to TTC (Park Operations and Maintenance Agreement).
• TTC leverages its POMA authority over the park, including the future Seaholm Intake Facility, to generate over $5M a year, which it spends on unverified "park operations and maintenance," TTC salaries — nearly $2M — and future capital improvements to convert the Seaholm Intake Facility into an event venue to be managed — and monetized — by TTC.
• Commercial boating-concession rent revenue is now paid to TTC, not the General Fund, valued at $690K in 2026.
• A TTC commemorative bench now costs the public $15K–$30K, and there is no commemorative-bench option provided by the City of Austin.

We aren't saving the park money. We're handing over control of it, and the revenue that comes with it, and trusting a private organization to spend it well — while the City hides the details that would let us check.

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Sources

All figures come from the City of Austin's own records and public filings:

• PARD maintenance-cost figure: 03-18-2022 Chute-Canul email to Director McNeeley (City file C259108). → document
• TTC FY2025 total revenue: TTC audited financial statements, year ended 12/31/2025 (City file C324162).→  document
• TTC executive compensation and Schedule L: TTC FY2024 IRS Form 990 (ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer).
• Bench program: Sarah Faust email to activists, 2026-06-15; City Memorial Bench Program page; TTC bench-dedication pricing (verified online). →  2021 article  →  TTC website
• FY26 concession estimate (~$690,000). →  document 

Diana Prechter is an Austin parks advocate who researches City of Austin park-partnership agreements through public records.

The Privatization of Austin's Parks: What the City's Own Contracts Show

By Diana Prechter, Austin parks advocate

Austin increasingly hands the day-to-day running of its public parks to private nonprofits. The City calls them "Level-A Partnerships," and the arrangement is easy to miss: the land stays publicly owned, the parks stay open, and the nonprofit's press makes it look like philanthropy at work. But when you read the actual contracts — the Park Operations and Maintenance Agreements, the Annual Implementation Documents, and the City's own payment records — a clearer and more consequential picture emerges. This is how I've come to understand it.

The model, in plain terms

The City has accepted a philosophy of handing over primary operational responsibility for park assets to nonprofits while contractually requiring very little in return — and while keeping the land itself in public ownership. In effect, the deal is:

"Here, you take over primary responsibility for this asset. Make money from it in ways the Parks Department either isn't allowed to or doesn't want to. We'll wrap a City framework around it to help you do good — meetings, Phase Plans, annual plans. We will underfund your park, and you will figure out how to monetize it with all the money-making tools a nonprofit has."

Let me be precise about what "privatization" means here, because it is not a sale. The City keeps title to the land. What it transfers is primary operational and maintenance responsibility, plus the right to earn revenue directly from public assets. That is the shift — not who owns the parks, but who runs them and who profits from them.

Seen from the Parks and Recreation Department's (APR) side, the model lets the department move assets off its own list of primary responsibilities — reducing its day-to-day operational and administrative overhead — while the nonprofit takes on both the burden and the revenue.

The four Level-A partners

Republic Square (Downtown Austin Alliance). The land is owned by the State of Texas; the City holds a long-term ground lease and contributes only a token amount — roughly $7,000 per year (about $105,000 over the 15-year term). APR's direct role is light: a single PARD staff seat on a four-member Management Committee, approval of the Annual Programming Plan, and quarterly financial reports — while the Downtown Austin Alliance runs and monetizes the park through events and programming.

Pease Park Conservancy. PPC holds primary authority for the Kingsbury Commons zone. But the model's fiscal viability is unproven — PPC has so far been unable to produce a Phase 2 Plan acceptable to PARD that would expand its management to more of the 84-acre park.

Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum. The City pays Umlauf a flat $200,000 a year for park maintenance and operation — two $100,000 installments, paid like clockwork for roughly a decade (about $2.4 million to date). Every other City payment to Umlauf is for arts/cultural programming or a Zero Waste rebate, not parks.

The Trail Conservancy (TTC). The POMA's own phasing plan is designed so that by Phase 3 — targeted for approximately 2032 — TTC, not the Parks Department, becomes the primary maintenance party for nearly every basic asset class across the 295-acre Town Lake Metropolitan Park, from the trail surface itself to lighting, fencing, benches, and trees, with APR left primary over little more than the restrooms and the trash cans.

What this actually is

This is what I mean by "privatization of the parks": the City is transferring primary responsibility for running publicly-owned parks from its own Parks Department to private nonprofits. And in exchange for assuming that primary responsibility, the nonprofits are allowed to generate revenue directly from public assets — the commercialization of our publicly-owned parks.

It's a trade-off — and sometimes it makes sense

This is a trade-off, and in some cases it appears to make sense. Small, specific assets that serve a relatively narrow slice of Austin — the State-owned Republic Square, or the long-established, financially steady Umlauf Sculpture Garden — may be well suited to nonprofit stewardship.

The practice grows riskier as the scale grows, as the public asset becomes larger or harder to replace, and as the nonprofit's fiscal model becomes less proven: the 295 acres of Town Lake Metropolitan Park, the historic Seaholm Intake Facility riding on fundraising that has already fallen short of its $5 million target, or the 84-acre Pease Park, whose expansion beyond the Kingsbury Commons zone remains unproven.

The public deserves to see the trade-offs — and to weigh in

The public has a right to understand these trade-offs before they are locked in — not just through a single Council vote, but in the phasing, monetization, and roles-and-responsibilities details that currently live in documents like the Annual Implementation Document and its exhibits (including the "LBL Roles" framework the City has withheld from public release). The public should have a say in whether they want their parks commercialized inside the business models of nonprofits.

Two accountability questions

First: when you report a park problem to 311, who actually responds? A broken fence, a downed limb, a failed light — if, by Phase 3 (around 2032), TTC is the primary party for nearly every asset class on the Butler Trail, then for much of Town Lake Metropolitan Park the answer may no longer be the City. The public deserves to know that.

Second, and most important: the City should have a plan for when an asset cannot be adequately managed by its nonprofit partner. The City already reserves this right — in the Seaholm arrangement, APR states it "retains the ability to revisit this arrangement if fundraising milestones are not met, including if another partner/org is identified with the funding and/or capacity to deliver." But reserving the right is not the same as having a plan. The City contemplates failure; it should publish the off-ramp for when failure happens.

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Sources

All figures in this piece come from the City of Austin's own records, obtained through public information requests:

1. 2026 TTC Annual Implementation Document (City file C307783) — Section 2.1/2.3 Roles and Responsibilities and Reference 4.1, Butler Trail Operations & Maintenance Plan (the Phase 1/2/3 maintenance table); 295-acre park figure. → document
2. Republic Square Parkland Improvement, Management, and Operations Agreement (City file C302770) — State of Texas ground-lease ownership, Downtown Austin Alliance management, Management Committee structure, 15-year term, ~$7,000/year City funding. → document
3. Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum Operations & Maintenance Agreement, 2014 (City file C293476) → agreement; and City of Austin payment records (Austin Finance Online) showing the recurring $200,000/year ($100,000 × 2) property-management payments (~$2.4M to date) → payment records · 2015 one-time payment.
4. Seaholm / TTC internal APR emails, April 2026 (City file C317272) — the Director's fundraising-timeline extension and APR's reserved right to "revisit this arrangement if fundraising milestones are not met." → document
5. Pease Park Conservancy Phase Plan records (City files C264039, C268411) — the unproven Phase 2 expansion. → draft plan · PARD feedback · PARD review

Diana Prechter is an Austin parks advocate who researches City of Austin park-partnership agreements through public records.