The Bathhouse Rehab Pivot Point - How the Rotunda's 2018 Design Promise Was Broken

The keystone to understanding the Barton Springs Pool Bathhouse Rehab is the Rotunda. Would it be an unconditioned space, with visitors passing through its midst the way they do at Deep Eddy Pool's bathhouse and the way they did here in 1946? Or would it become a museum of exhibits requiring HVAC around the clock?

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 the resolution 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.

Ten months later — 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.

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.

Barton Springs Pool Bathhouse, Women's Dressing Area 2024 (prior to rehab)

Showers facing courtyard. Warm winter dressing stalls. Gone forever.

A Timeline Guided My Analysis

The pivot point was summer 2018. After building and studying a timeline of studies, contracts, and community engagement, it's apparent 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."

Community Engagement Created a Pivot Point

• Oct. 2018, the revised scope [source] stated that the "vacated spaces" of the Rotunda would be committed to "public education". Evidence indicates that this revision was the result of BSC influence in the summer of 2018: Mike Cannatti, president of BSC, identified himself in a survey comment: "The lifeguard shack needs to stay in the current space. The safety of the swimmers should be the number 1 goal." [source] This kept the lifeguard offices out of the Rotunda basket area and, with Limbacher's revised scope and design, BSC was given the space it wanted for donor-funded exhibits and an educational classroom. Through community engagement with Stakeholders in the summer of 2018, BSC donors had converted the Rotunda from an unconditioned space for swimmers to an HVAC conditioned museum-like space for classrooms of school children.
• Karen Kocher, BSC Board member and video content creator, would get the Splash! Exhibit to screen her Springs series for the next 50 years. [source]
• Someone — unidentified in the record in summer 2018 — wanted "women's privacy" and "family restrooms" added to the scope. The Limbacher 2019 design responded: concrete walls were added on the south-side of the women's showers, blocking all visibility of showers from-and-to the courtyard. The open design of the 1946 bathhouse had been destroyed... forever.

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.

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 — while Stakeholders, including the donors funding BSC, were given outsized influence. 

Here is how Laurie Limbacher's Jan. 2018 scope was altered after the summer 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.

My conclusion: BSC paid to play. The general public did not. I think that explains the final design of the Bathhouse.

I suggest that the public direct their questions about the exhibits to BSC, contact: president@bartonspringsconservancy.org

What's Next?

I think the designers took a big risk here. 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 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. 

• As recently as March 2026, BSC's volunteer equipment — wheelbarrows and rakes — was being stored in an emergency exit corridor. [source 1] [source 2]
• The City will need two new employees as "exhibit interpreters." [source]
• Summer crowds may not fit through the new single-door in-and-out pathway for pool entry.
• Summer temperatures will struggle if the Rotunda's entry and exit doors stay open constantly.
• People will be unhappy if the entry system leaves them in the heat too long.
• 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 drug use. The Bathhouse now has five of them. Can staff keep them clean and safe?

DP's 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.

(Additional supporting evidence for these conclusions: here.)

The Full Series

This is the tenth and final post in this series. In the order they were written and published:

1. Introducing the 2026 Barton Springs Pool Bathhouse Rehab Project
2. The Design Options Shown to the Public
3. What the Visitor Encounters Entering the New Rotunda
4. Questions: Has the Current Limbacher Design Met the Scope of Services?
5. Two Concerns of Barton Springs Conservancy: Staffing and Storage
6. Possible Operational Issues: Occupancy Limits and Air Conditioning
7. Missed Opportunities: Women's Dressing Area Not Restored to Historic Design
8. Missed Opportunities: Exhibits and Education Center Did Not Get a New Building Off-Site of the Bathhouse
9. In 2026, At Least 9 Months Past Due: Difficulties With the Exhibits at the Barton Springs Pool Bathhouse