NuStar ‘Superstars’ Adopt Hardberger Park

NuStar Energy has adopted Phil Hardberger Park and the adjacent Salado Creek Greenway as part of the City of San Antonio’s Adopt-a-Park program.

For their first project, twenty NuStar volunteers, known as “NuStar Superstars,” planted and mulched trees, plants and flowers at the Blanco Road entrance to the park.

“We had about twice as many volunteers show up as anticipated,” said Tappan Shah, a member of NuStar’s Volunteer Committee. “It’s not hard to convince people to bring their families outdoors on a Saturday morning to beautify our city. I think this is going to become one of our most popular volunteer programs.”

The Adopt-a-Park program is an opportunity for local businesses and organizations to help keep San Antonio parks in good condition. The purpose is to expand sustainable resources in a time of scarce resources through community partnerships. NuStar’s Volunteer Committee identified Hardberger Park after consultation with COSA Parks and Recreation staff.

“We were blown away,” said Shu Ping Hwan. “They have the entire year planned out for us. This is the first of many monthly projects we’ll take on.”

NuStar volunteers will also help with the May 21 grand opening of Phase II of Hardberger Park, which includes trails, playground, basketball courts, multi-purpose sports fields, BBQ grills, dog park and parking accessible from NW Military across from the Alon Town Center.

For those keeping track of the restoration of the native landscape at Hardberger Park, here’s a list of what the NuStar group planted Saturday, provided by COSA Parks and Rec’s Gail Gallegos:

100 Lantana
100 Rock Rose
100 Zexmenia
20 Mountain Laurel Trees
20 Eve Necklace Trees
9 Texas Redbud Trees
6 Mexican Buckeye Trees

“All the trees were understory trees and they all bloom,” said Gallegos. “Look for them as you enter and exit the park from Blanco Road.”

Volunteers to Restore Historic Dairy Barn

Volunteers with the Associated General Contractors’ Construction Leadership Forum (CLF) will begin tomorrow, Saturday, March 19 a two-year-long community service project to restore the nineteenth century dairy barn at Phil Hardberger Park.

The barn was built in 1896 as part of the Voelcker farmstead and will be the first of several heritage structures restored as part of the park’s master plan. Approximately 25 members of the CLF will spend the morning cleaning up the site in preparation for a “Barn Raising” fundraiser scheduled for May 14th to help pay for any materials that aren’t donated.

“CLF has a history of community service projects, but this is probably our most ambitious one yet,” said Zac Harris, chairman of the CLF, AGC’s young professionals group. “It just has all the elements important to ACG: honoring our cultural heritage, creating educational opportunities for school kids and supporting public parks.”

The approximately 1500 square foot dairy barn will be restored to its original state. Rotted wood will be replaced, and 25-30 windows, many of which have been boarded up, will be repaired, but the existing structure will remain intact. CLF and Fisher Heck Architects are working with the City of San Antonio’s Historic Preservation Office to ensure that the restoration allows the building to be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.
“We want kids to walk in and feel like they’ve stepped back in time,” said Harris. “We envision a working farm with live cows — a place where we can all connect with our cultural heritage and better understand San Antonio’s original settlements.”

In her 2010 book, Last Farm Standing on Buttermilk Hill: Voelcker Roots Run Deep in Hardberger Park, author Gayle Brennan Spencer writes that the dairy barn was “the most important structure on the Voelcker Farm,” one of many family farms located in an area she calls “dairy land” between Loops 410 and 1604. Roads such as Jones-Maltsberger, Isom, Sandau and Coker Lane were all named for the family farms to which they led.

“The restoration of the dairy barn will provide a glimpse into what daily life was like for hardworking farmers in the area known as Buttermilk Hill,” said Spencer. “Twice a day, 365 days a year, Max and Minnie would herd their cows into the barn for milking. And, in the days before refrigeration, milking was only the beginning of the process required to make a marketable product. The adjacent rooms probably were used to separate the milk into cream, which does not spoil as easily, and to laboriously churn butter to deliver to city-dwellers.”

Former Mayor Phil Hardberger led the city’s effort to purchase the property from the Max and Minnie Tomerlin Voelcker Fund as part of an overall effort to increase acreage and accessibility to city parks. The acquisition and development of the former dairy farm into a world class park was the signature project among the 69 parks projects included in the 2007 Bond Program. A master plan completed by the team of Stephen Stimson and Associates and D.I.R.T Studio calls for up to $57 million worth of improvements, including trails, sporting fields, a dog park, a land bridge over Wurzbach Pkwy, Urban Ecology Center and rehabilitation of the Heritage Homestead, including the dairy barn and an 1800s farmhouse on the property. Phase 1A of the north side park opened in 2010 and Phase 2 will open May 21, 2011.

“I am so looking forward to the restoration of the dairy barn,” said Hardberger, who is currently chairman of the board of the Phil Hardberger Park Conservancy. “It brings back many early morning memories of milking the cows every day on the farm where I grew up. We are all indebted to the AGC CLF volunteers who are making this restoration possible. They are preserving a part of San Antonio history.”

The Max and Minnie Tomerlin Voelcker Fund is donating proceeds from the sale of Last Farm Standing to the Phil Hardberger Park Conservancy. According to its mission statement, Phil Hardberger Park Conservancy will advocate renewal, recreation and learning through nature in an urban setting. The conservancy will ensure all park development will be in accordance with the master plan and will enhance a sustainable natural landscape for future generations.

Readers Recommend Dog Park

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For February 2011, FIDOFriendly.com polled readers on top Dog Friendly Destinations. No surprise to us, Phil Hardberger Park is included with selected parks that rate as “…Paradise for pooches and people who like the great outdoors.”

"Texas Katy with Teeny’s Friends says her pawsome dog place is Phil Hardburger Park. “This fenced-in park includes an actual two-story doggy playhouse, several agility ramps, water fountains, picnic tables and benches for pet parents!”

We're not resting on our laurels! Stay tuned for more dog friendly improvements.

The Next Phase of the Park

The May 15 grand opening of Phil Hardberger Park, including the mile and a half of hiking trails, playscape and the city's largest dog park, was just the beginning of the former dairy farm's transformation into a world-class park. A new phase of the park is expected to open in each of the next five years.

This is not to say that the entire 311-acre property will be developed; rather, 75 percent of it will remain what the Master Plan calls "cultivated wild" -- native Texas landscape that has been carefully restored.

This month the City of San Antonio will begin construction on Phase 1B, which includes a number of new features on the existing eastern side of the park adjacent to Blanco Road, as well as the first amenities on the western edge of the property off NW Military Highway.

On the Blanco Road side, a new Salado Creek Classroom will front the parking lot and will include permanent restrooms, offices and a classroom for teaching about nature and the history of the park. This will be the first of several outdoor classrooms "embedded within the landscape mosaic to allow proximity to the native landscape," according to the Master Plan, designed by Stephen Stimson Associates and D.I.R.T. Studio. As you can see from this rendering, courtesy of the Stimson team, the pavilion will straddle the trail.

Plans also call for an overlook located near the historic farmstead off Voelcker Lane. This "perch that connects the park to the city's ecosystem, both natural and cultural" will give visitors a birds-eye view of Salado Creek from the top of a wooded bluff. The City will also add another trail, near the existing dog park, which will connect Blanco Road to the Geology Loop and Water Loop Trails.

On the NW Military side, there will be another playground ("And if you think the one off Blanco is cool, this will be super-cool," says Sandy Jenkins, of the City's Parks and Recreation Department), basketball courts, multi-purpose sports fields and BBQ grills. There will be an entrance and parking lot off of NW Military.

The $1.7 million Phase 1B project is being funded by a $1 million Urban Outdoor Recreation Grant from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and matching funds from the City. Construction should begin mid-July with an expected completion date of fall 2011.

Prairie Restoration

In keeping with the park’s master plan, the City of San Antonio’s Parks and Recreation Department is restoring grasslands in the park.

While the 311-acre property features many native trees, there are virtually no native grasses — less than 1 percent, according to a plant survey conducted as part of the master plan.

The property had been overgrazed by livestock during its more than 100 years as a working dairy farm, and non-native species such as Ranch Bluestem Grass and Bermuda Grass have dominated ever since.

As former Mayor Phil Hardberger said during the park’s May 15 grand opening ceremonies, the plan is to create oak savannas, which are clearings among the oak trees where understory and groundcover of native plants, grasses and wildflowers can re-establish themselves, allowing visitors of the park to experience what the land was like more than a century ago. Native grasslands also support wildlife, so the restoration is a critical element to rebuilding natural ecosystems.

The City has established three acres of test plots, which they will study to learn the most efficient restoration methods for elsewhere in the park (as well as other properties throughout the city). City staff spread wildflower seeds in September and October of last year, and these photos are result of their effort.

For those of you interested in the science behind the restoration, Leonard provides further explanation:

“Half of the plots were sprayed with inoculating microbes (good bacteria and fungi) on May 7th. The inoculants came from soil in native grasslands in the Hill Country and was mixed with organic fertilizers and organic compost. The idea is to see how the grasses and wildflowers respond to these inoculants and fertilizers and whether future grassland restoration projects would benefit from this type of application.

Soil samples from the plots were taken in February and sent off for analysis. The amount of nutrients as well as bacteria and fungi were tested. The will give us a good baseline to compare with future soil samples. A second round of soil sampling will be conducted in the fall to see if the sprayed inoculants increased the amount of nutrients, bacteria, and fungi in the soil.

Additionally, Dr. Kelly Lyons with Trinity University brought her class out to the grassland plots April 28th to get baseline data for the plants before the inoculants were sprayed. This survey will be completed again in the fall to see if the inoculants sprayed made any difference in plant growth and response. We hope to have enough data by then to possibly present at the Texas Society for Ecological Restoration conference in the fall.”

Tails of the Trails

June 5, 2010 – Thanks to the Lackland Air Force Base dog trainers who brought police dogs to demonstrate what they are trained to do.

Many Happy Returns to Hardberger Park

The best measure of the May 15 grand opening of Phil Hardberger Park may have been a question overheard from a little boy as his family was leaving the playground.

“Mom, can we come back next week?” the boy asked his mother.

"We sure can,” answered Kathy Thomas.

That type of exchange is what the park’s namesake envisioned when he led the City of San Antonio’s effort to buy the former dairy farm.

“If you didn’t make it out here today, don’t worry,” former Mayor Phil Hardberger said at the grand opening ceremony, “you’ll have the next several hundred years to enjoy it.”

Hardberger put the day in historical context, comparing the estimated 2,500 people who attended the grand opening to the crowd that gathered 111 years ago for the opening of Brackenridge Park. At 311 acres, Hardberger Park is second in size only to Brackenridge among city parks, which opened in 1899.

“Nature endures. People don’t,” he said. “Even Central Park, as tremendous a resource as it is to New York City, is only 850 acres. This park is truly a gift to the people of San Antonio.”

The initial Phase 1A includes 1.5 miles of trails, which connect to the Salado Creek Greenway; a treelined parking lot made of permeable crushed granite; a 1.8 acre dog park -- the city’s largest -- with separate sections for large and small dogs and an elaborate two-story doghouse; a large play scape with a rubberized surface; picnic facilities; and an oak savanna restoration pilot project.

Of course, the work is now just beginning. Phase 1A amounts to only 1/5th of the park; the plan is to open another phase of the park each of the next five years. The City of San Antonio’s Parks and Recreation Department will execute the concepts in the park’s master plan and the Hardberger Park Conservancy will raise private money to support the city’s effort. Phil and Linda Hardberger have already kicked it off with a $100,000 contribution.

Weathered the Storm

More than a few Conservancy board members commented on the seemingly miraculous work of Xavier Urrutia’s Parks and Recreation Department staff to prepare the park for the grand opening despite the torrential rain the day before. More than 100 city employees worked in the rain all day Friday preparing the park for the big weekend.

They swept mud from the trails with push brooms, mulched low lying areas and hauled away brush. They also finished installing agility equipment in the dog park and the fence separating the large and small dog areas. By the time the clouds parted Saturday morning, those same staffers were decked out in matching green shirts, smiling brightly and welcoming visitors to the park.

“I’ve never been more impressed by city staff,” said Conservancy Director Betty Sutherland. “Whatever needed to be done, they did it.”

In addition to Urrutia, Assistant City Manager Sharon De La Garza, Assistant Director Edward Benavides, Special Project Manager Sandy Jenkins, Assistant Parks Manager Eric Lautzenheiser, Nature Preserve Officer Gail Gallegos, Parks Operations Manager Krystal Strong and Parks Operations Manager Victor Valdez deserve a special thank you.

Moms Roll In

One of the groups now using Hardberger Park regularly is Stroller Strides of North San Antonio. Stroller Strides is a full body exercise for mothers with their children in strollers. The classes consist of intervals of power walking and muscle strengthening exercises using resistance tubing.

“We have been looking forward to using this park ever since we had our first class in May of 2008,” said Lisa DeArmond. “It is in a great location and it leads to a fantastic trail (Salado Creek Greenway), which we already utilize for our Ready To Run Program.”

Stroller Strides of North San Antonio celebrated its two year anniversary at Phil Hardberger Park on May 27. After participating in a free class, the moms were treated to cupcakes from Cupcake Couture, free coupons to Orange Cup and a parachute playdate for the kiddos.