Today in Zilker Park: 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]

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

Mike Cannatti, president of BSC, stated publicly that preserving the staff offices along the sidewalk — carved from the women's dressing area in 1967 — was a swimmer-safety issue, and that they must not be relocated. [source]
Karen Kocher, a BSC Board member, would get the Splash! Exhibit to screen her Springs video series. [source]
Someone — unidentified in the record — wanted "women's privacy" and "family restrooms" added to the scope.

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.

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. This isn't conjecture: a 2018 survey statement signed by BSC president Cannatti, and a separate 2024 email to me from BSC Board Member Kocher, both show that their wishes were met — against the interests of the people who actually use the women's dressing area.

Laurie Limbacher's stated scope from Jan. 2018 was altered after the 2018 community engagement with Stakeholders:

The Sheffield Education Center and Splash! exhibit would not be relocated; Karen Kocher, BSC Board member and creator of the Springs video series, would instead get a Splash! Exhibit in the bathhouse.
Only part of the Aquatics staff offices and Watershed Protection Department salamander-biologist equipment would move to the vacated women's basket area, to preserve Rotunda space for BSC's purposes — BSC president Mike Cannatti stated publicly (survey response, Oct. 18, 2018) that the lifeguard staff spaces, two rooms carved out of the women's dressing area in 1967, had to stay in place as a "swimmer safety issue."
The Sheffield Education Center (a classroom) took the place of staff areas that had been "proposed for the future renovation of the original women's basket room area."
The original scope — which specifically said it would "not include any actual design, planning or relocation of Sheffield and the Splash! exhibit" — ended up doing exactly that.
The "bulk of the bathhouse," meant to be "an unconditioned, open-air structure," became a museum-like exhibit area full of electronic displays, computers, and projection screens — adding expense, and HVAC, to the final project.

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

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 needs somewhere to go that keeps rodents out. 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. And the women's showers no longer have sight-lines to spot anyone who wanders into the women's dressing area at night.

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."
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. [CONFIRM: is that correct?]
The women's showers may be prone to mold, since airflow is 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.
Family restrooms have a history of drug use. The Bathhouse now has five of them. Can staff keep them clean and safe?

One Example of BSC's Influence on the Rotunda's Design

BSC Board Member Karen Kocher's background, in her words:

I am on the Barton Springs board as a volunteer due to my interest in the Springs and my documentation of the Springs as part of the Living Springs series. A little bit about me. In 2010, I was visiting the Splash! exhibit and noticed that the same video playing in the small theater in 1997 was still playing in 2010. As a documentary maker and lover of Barton Springs, I thought I could help provide new and more expansive documentary content to the exhibit. I found a fiscal agent (Save Barton Creek Association and Austin Film Society) and started writing grants. Today the Living Springs series comprises 27 films that I donated free of charge to the education center there. I also raised funds to mount two physical exhibits in the rotunda in 2018 and 2020, again free of charge to the City and all visitors. Sometime around 2015 or so, Mike Cannatti asked me if I was interested in coming onto the board of the Barton Springs Conservancy to help get the bathhouse renovated. I was interested, both as a swimmer and as the producer of educational content. The educational exhibits were at a separate entrance from the swimmers, missing an opportunity to educate everyone who comes to the pool. The bathrooms were outdated and shabby. The women's changing room was charming, but not up to modern standards.

(Full Kocher email to DP, 2024.)

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 to 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.

(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:

Today in Zilker Park

Thursday, October 1, 2026

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