The Land Bridge at Phil Hardberger Park will connect the two sides of the 330-acre park over Wurzbach Parkway, providing pedestrian, bicycle and wildlife mobility across a structure that is 150 feet wide and 189 feet long.
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Phil Hardberger Park Conservancy Nears Its Goal of Uniting Hardberger Park
Phil Hardberger recently announced $3 million in donations for the Land Bridge. The three donors, each giving $1 million, are Phil and Linda Hardberger, the Klesse Foundation (Bill and Margie Klesse), and the Voelcker Fund. Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff announced that he is working to secure $1 million in County funds for the bridge.
The announcements were made May 9, at a press conference at the PHP Urban Ecology Center. Invited guests included Judge Wolff, U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett, and City Councilman Ron Nirenberg, as well as members of the PHP Conservancy Board of Directors.
The funds, along with the $5 million the Conservancy had previously raised and the $13 million included in the City of San Antonio Bond passed May 6, bring the total secured for the Land Bridge to $22 million. The project is expected to cost $23 million.
Former Mayor Hardberger, President of the Phil Hardberger Park Conservancy, said that he expects the Conservancy to raise the remaining $1 million by the end of the year and hopes that the City will break ground on the Land Bridge in January 2018.
Read more about the Land Bridge donations:
Rivard Report- https://therivardreport.com/land-bridge-nears-funding-goal-with-hardbergers-1-million-gift/
Texas Public Radio- http://tpr.org/post/hardberger-park-2-million-away-meeting-land-bridge-goal#stream/0
UPDATED: Defending the Land Bridge
Why does a city park need its own nonprofit?
SA Magazine Best Of The City 2016
No doubt the honor is due to the park's wonderful staff and volunteers who make sure it is also the cleanest, friendliest and safest.
Ask a Naturalist: Burrowing Owls
Are there burrowing owls in the park?
There are not burrowing owls within Hardberger Park, because the park lacks the right habitat. Burrowing owls like more open land with short grasses. The savanna in Hardberger Park is too small and contains tall grasses. Burrowing owls also like to use prairie dog dens as their burrow to nest. Prairie dogs require much of the same habitat as burrowing owls and occur more west of Hardberger Park. Burrowing owls will, however, use burrows dug by other mammals such as skunks and armadillos.
A lot of borrows that you see in the park today, especially on the NW Military side, have been there since before the park opened. A preliminary wildlife survey suggested those were old badger burrows, dug years ago when the area was once inhabited by badgers. We did put wildlife cameras up on these burrows for months and did get armadillos moving in and out of the burrows. It is hard to tell if those burrows were in fact dug by armadillos or from an earlier mammal no longer inhabiting the park. Badgers once roamed this area but have been pushed westward due to development and loss of habitat.