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Please enter the date the space opened to the public. If you don't know the exact date, select the first of the correct month and year.
Please indicate the approximate number of people served within a half-mile (800 meters) of the project.

In the space provided (approximately 200 words) provide a summary description of the open space. ULI will use this description for publication. Please avoid predictions ("will be a gathering place for years to come") and stick to factual information. This might touch very briefly on the following, which you will have a chance to describe later in more detail:

  • Size
  • Number of people served
  • History
  • Project goals
  • Physical description
  • Major features/amenities
  • Relationship to the community

Named for the river of “refreshing waters” along which the Payaya tribe built its seasonal villages, Yanaguana Garden at Hemisfair is a 4.1-acre community gathering place in the heart of downtown San Antonio. Yanaguana Garden is the first implementation phase of the Hemisfair Park Area Redevelopment Master Plan and has hosted 2.7 million park visitors since opening in October 2015.

Located within the former 1968 World’s Fair site, Yanaguana Garden treats visitors to rich and diverse experiences informed and inspired by the history, environment and constantly evolving arts and culture of San Antonio. A trellis-covered central promenade connects a series of flexible outdoor spaces that accommodate and encourage a variety of programmed and impromptu activities from morning to night. One of the key design goals was to highlight “play” as a universal language and create an equitable space where all children, families and individuals—regardless of cultural heritage, socioeconomic status, age or physical ability—would be welcomed, engaged and challenged to play. As an economic catalyst, Yanaguana Garden has contributed to a 182% increase in median property tax revenue in the surrounding census tracts from 2013 to 2017, compared to 8% for Bexar County as a whole.

Describe the history of the land and key milestones in the development of the open space.
Hemisfair was once the site of a culturally diverse low-to-moderate income (LMI) neighborhood called Germantown, dating back to the 1800s. The neighborhood was destroyed through urban renewal to create space for the 1968 World’s Fair in San Antonio. Afterward, the area remained unimproved and disconnected from surrounding neighborhoods for the better part of 50 years. In 2009, The Hemisfair Park Area Redevelopment Corporation (HPARC) was created by the San Antonio City Council to redevelop the former site and turn it into a central gathering place for the greater community. HPARC, a 501(c)3 local government corporation, is dedicated to the transformation of Hemisfair into a sustainable, self-funded urban parks district with residences, local businesses, unique programming and three parks—Yanaguana Garden, Civic Park (Phase II) and Tower Park (Phase III). HPARC is supported in part by the Hemisfair Conservancy, an independent 501(c)3. Yanaguana Garden opened to the public on Oct. 2, 2015.
Describe the physical space in more detail. Describe the sub-spaces and their relationship to one another.
Yanaguana Garden is bounded by East Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard to the south, South Alamo Street to the west, Hemisfair Boulevard to the east, and the future site of Civic Park to the north.

The unifying theme of the design is based on the creation myth of the San Antonio River. According to Payaya legend, a blue panther chased an anhinga bird from the source spring of the river and water drops from its wings created life in the San Antonio River Valley. The story is told in each programmatic element.

The Alamo Gateway welcomes visitors into Yanaguana Garden and provides a transitional space between South Alamo Street and the large multipurpose play lawn—a flexible space for games, event tents, movie nights, food carts, dancing and exercise. Use of colorful paving and playful art elements entice, direct and greet visitors at each point where Yanaguana Garden meets adjacent circulation connections.

An irregularly arched, powder-coated steel pergola encloses a central promenade that runs south-north throughout the park. It connects each of Yanaguana Garden’s “rooms,” creating a sense of movement, energy and direction. Vines covering the pergola cool the pavement and shade visitors from the Texas sun. At night, sparkling lights accompany people on evening strolls down the promenade.

The subspaces or “rooms” in Yanaguana Garden accommodate a wide variety of activities for all ages and abilities. Play features include swings and net climbers, as well as a custom-made cedar playhouse. A splash pad also uses water as a catalyst for play with a nearby “sandbar” big enough for 100 explorers, featuring a limestone acequia (Spanish Colonial irrigation and distribution channel) with a blue-tiled water source, referring the original “Blue Hole” of the creation legend. A Central Games Plaza highlights oversized chess boards, concrete ping pong tables and a bocce court.

Yanaguana Garden incorporates and preserves several historic structures, homes and 1968 World’s Fair venues as locations for restaurants, cafes, retail stores and other park-activating amenities to attract and engage visitors.

Yanaguana Garden is also an outdoor art gallery hosting a specially commissioned collection known as “PLAY at Yanaguana” with eight interactive pieces designed by local artists. In addition, moveable furnishings allow users to customize seating for their needs, and a series of sinuous, mosaic-covered concrete seat walls create patterns that encourage social interaction.

Please list other awards and recognition this open space has received. If the project has received an award from ULI at the local, national, regional, or global level, you must note that here.
2019 Texas ASLA Merit Award

2019 Landscape Architecture Foundation Case Study

Readers' selection for Best Park in San Antonio, San Antonio Magazine: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016

Editors' selection for Best Place to Play Outside with Kids, San Antonio Magazine: 2020

Readers' selection for Best Playground, San Antonio Current: 2019, 2018

Official Monarch Waystation
If multiple owners, please separate their names with a semicolon. Example: City of Springfield Redevelopment Authority; Springfield Parks Foundation
Hemisfair Park Area Redevelopment Corporation; City of San Antonio
If multiple designers, please separate their names with a semicolon. Example: Open Space Studio; Parks + Parks
MIG, Inc.
Please indicate if there are other project team members you want to recognize.
JOERIS General Contractors
General Contractor
HDR, Inc.
Civil engineering
Bender Wells Clark Design
Planting and irrigation
CNG Engineering, PLLC
Electrical and lighting engineering
Duende Design Architects, Inc.
Restroom design
Intelligent Engineering Services
Structural Engineering
Oscar Alvarado
Mosaic artist
City of San Antonio Public Works
Project manager
Ximenes & Associates, Inc.
Community workshop team
Overland Partners
Central trellis design
Please select the seven (7) criteria you think best reflect why this open space should win this award. You must enter an explanation for these seven criteria and may provide information for more than these seven criteria.
What are the vision and goals for the open space? Is the open space achieving the vision and goals?
The vision of Hemisfair is to create a series of beloved urban parks embraced by a vibrant and walkable neighborhood. When fully developed, Hemisfair will be an urban oasis that improves the quality of life for San Antonians and is celebrated by the whole community. Yanaguana Garden is helping achieve our goal of creating one of the world’s great public places. The park is beloved by the community for its thoughtful design, unique programming and plentiful amenities.
Do people use it intensively on a regular basis? Does it act as a destination for a broad spectrum of users throughout the year? Please describe the users and how they use the space.
Yanaguana Garden has welcomed 2.7 million park visitors since opening in October 2015. The park sees an annual visitation rate of 600,000, making it the second-busiest park per acre in Texas. While March-October are the busiest months, high usage occurs throughout the year thanks to Hemisfair’s free community programs, special events and visiting school groups.

• Supports increased visitorship to Hemisfair, with a 13% increase from the first to second year of operation (2016-2017) and a 44% increase from the second to third (2017-2018). Hemisfair hosted 1,079 events from 2015-2018 and over 600 additional events in 2019.
Is it fully accessible to people of all abilities? Please describe.
Informed by decades of research in universal design, including the award-winning PLAY FOR ALL Guidelines, Yanaguana Garden is fully accessible to people of all ages and abilities. In its case study, the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) research team found that the Garden:

• Allows visitors to access, use, and enjoy all play features according to 94% of 82 surveyed visitors. Through interviews, 3 visitors who identified as having a disability reported that they felt the site was accessible.
Does it provide thoughtful, high quality attractions and features that offer different ways for visitors to enjoy the space? Please describe.
Play features include standard manufactured equipment such as swings and net climbers, as well as custom elements such as a modern-style playhouse and adaptive, wheelchair accessible play equipment. Water is used as a catalyst for play in the Splash Pad and adjacent large sand pit. Additional areas for group play include the Games Plaza with oversize checkers and chess boards, Foosball and ping pong tables, cornhole courts and picnic tables.

The area surrounding Yanaguana Garden makes use of several historic buildings as locations for restaurants, cafes, a yoga studio and activities to attract and engage visitors.
Does it provide thoughtful, high quality programming that engages diverse groups of people? Please describe.
Throughout the programming year (March-October), Hemisfair activates Yanaguana Garden with free community programs on a weekly and monthly basis. The weekly Story Time program pairs a book reading with a STEAM activity for kids five years old and under. Inclusion Programming takes place monthly and offers adaptive activities for kids and adults of all ages and abilities to do together. Art in the Garden and Super Fun Saturday incorporates local vendors and small businesses along with music, movement, arts and STEAM activities. Everyday park play elements are activated weekdays, including hula hoops, Big Blue Blocks, giant chess and checkers.
Does it demonstrate innovation – in design, financing, programming, partnerships, or otherwise? Please describe.
Yanaguana Garden is the “laboratory” for the Hemisfair urban parks district. With this park, an innovative financial sustainability model is tested through lease agreements with park-activating small businesses who occupy six (6) rehabilitated historic homes within the footprint. The affordable lease structure is a flat percentage of the businesses’ gross monthly sales. The revenue generated by these agreements, in addition to ground lease revenue from The ’68 Apartments, is reinvested in the park to fund operations and maintenance. This innovative financial sustainability model will be replicated at Hemisfair’s remaining two parks when fully redeveloped.
Does it provide lessons, strategies, and techniques that other communities can use or adapt? Please describe.
HPARC has discovered a formula that captures earned revenues throughout the parks district to pay for exceptional levels of activation, programming, maintenance and operations. A key lesson is to be led by a vision (ours is to be one of the world’s best public places) and to intentionally seek partners who share that vision to create mutually agreeable situations. For example, by partnering with local restaurants who occupy the historic structures within Yanaguana Garden, a percentage of sales goes toward improving the parks and thereby bringing more park guests, which leads to more restaurant guests, creating a virtuous cycle.
Did it make efficient use of public and/or private investment for its development? Does it make efficient use of public and/or private investment for its maintenance and operations? Please describe.
To date, Hemisfair has leveraged $9 million of public investment in Yanaguana Garden into over $35 million of private investment, including mixed-income residential, local restaurants, shops, public parking and philanthropy.

As a public park in the City of San Antonio’s system, Hemisfair enjoys economies of scale and access to Parks & Recreation department equipment and services. Unlike most City parks, Yanaguana Garden is assigned dedicated staff to ensure consistent quality. HPARC additionally employs its own Director of Operations who coordinates with the Parks department to ensure coverage for events and special occasions, resulting in an efficient maintenance and operations schedule.
Is there a thoughtful long term strategy underway for maintenance and operations and/or future investment? Please describe.
HPARC’s long-term strategy is to utilize revenues generated within the Hemisfair district to fund public places. Creating one of the world’s great public places leads to increasing visitorship (Yanaguana Garden averages 700,000 annual visitors, a 400% increase since before the park was built). Those visitors, in turn, spend money in the district and that money goes back to fund long-term operations, maintenance and activation of the parks.
Has it had a positive economic impact on its surrounding communities? Please describe.
• Catalyzes visitor spending, with 82% of surveyed visitors reporting patronizing businesses and restaurants within a 2-block radius of Yanaguana Garden.
• Contributed to a 50% average increase in assessed commercial property value from 2015 to 2019.
• Contributed to a 182% increase in the residential property values in the surrounding census tracts from 2013 to 2017, compared to an 8% increase for Bexar County as a whole.
• Helped catalyze the establishment of at least four new local businesses within a 3-block radius and six small and minority-owned businesses onsite, employing several hundred local residents.
Does it connect to or enhance local and regional pedestrian, cycling, transit, and sharing networks and/or services? Does it provide multiple, new, and/or better quality transportation options to residents and visitors? Please describe.
Connectivity was a guiding principle in the establishment of Hemisfair, with the aim of not only connect formerly disengaged properties to the surrounding neighborhoods but also to create new paths for mobility. We have achieved this primarily through the development of new “Park Streets” which are designed as shared, slow-moving Complete Streets with the addition of significant amounts of shade. These park streets are multimodal and have accomplished a unique path for vehicles, bicycles, wheelchairs, e-scooters and pedestrians to share in order to access Yanaguana Garden, its commercial tenants and a public parking garage.
Has it had a positive social impact on its surrounding communities? Does it support community resilience? Please describe.
Yanaguana Garden encourages interaction between previously unacquainted visitors. LAF observed at least 28% of 368 visitors making new connections with others over two June days.

Hemisfair provides the low-to-moderate income (LMI) population with affordable housing to protect against gentrification, reduce commute times, offer proximity to a high employment zone downtown and provide a walkable neighborhood. The first mixed income apartment complex, The ’68 Apartments at Hemisfair, opened next to Yanaguana Garden in July 2019 and includes 76 of 151 units reserved for workforce housing at 80 percent Area Median Income (AMI), with 10 percent of those at 50-70 percent AMI.
Did its planning include substantive public engagement of all relevant stakeholders? Please describe.
Each of Hemisfair’s development phases is shaped by community feedback and input (public workshops, focus groups, pop-up events and online surveys). For Yanaguana Garden, thousands of people—including children, parents, business owners, artists, and civic and cultural organizations like the Tāp Pilām-Coahuiltecan Nation Family Bands and Clans—participated in the design process.
Does it promote the physical and/or mental health of its surrounding communities? Please describe.
Does it include or enhance access to agriculture or food systems? Please describe.
Does it support environmental sustainability and/or resilience to climate change or peak weather events? Does it encourage resource efficiency or provide new or enhance existing green infrastructure? Please describe.
• Captures, infiltrates and evaporates an estimated 34% of average annual rainfall using infiltration basins and permeable play surfaces.
• Keeps air temperatures on a typical June day an average of 7°F cooler in the morning and 12°F cooler in the afternoon than air temperatures in an adjacent park without mature trees.
• Incorporates bioswales at critical collection points around the site to manage stormwater runoff.
• Vegetation on the site is 100% native or adaptive drought-tolerant, including century plant, Mexican feather grass and red yucca.
Does it include or enhance access to nature? Does it protect critical habitat, ecosystems services, or other resources? Does it promote stewardship? Please describe.
The park has a mature tree canopy due to the preservation of most of the site’s existing mature trees. To supplement the existing trees, two mature trees were saved from nearby demolition sites and transplanted in Yanaguana Garden. An additional 16 new trees were planted including cedar elm (Ulmus Crassifolia), Mexican white oak (Quercus Polymorpha), and Texas mountain laurel (Sophora secundiflora).

Yanaguana Garden is home to three pollinator gardens that serve as critical monarch habitat and official monarch waystations.

Hemisfair has a robust network of community volunteers, including students, who assist with programming and gardening on a regular basis.
Does it represent an investment in disadvantaged or underserved neighborhoods? Does it address gentrification and/or displacement? Does it promote land use patterns that reduce environmental vulnerabilities? Please describe.
Affordable housing is one of San Antonio’s most pressing challenges. Hemisfair’s innovative workforce housing policy designates 10-50% of the district’s residential developments as workforce housing, benefiting people earning 50-110% of Area Median Income. There are currently 151 apartments located at Hemisfair, half of which are reserved for workforce housing.

Yanaguana Garden features 223 trees, three pollinator gardens and playful amenities that appeal to all ages and abilities. The popular splash pad uses recycled and filtered water, and the park’s two bioswales capture and divert over 152,000 gallons of rainwater each year.
Does the overall form and function of the space serve the goals set for it? Is it beautiful, pleasing, or unexpected in a positive way? Please describe.
Yanaguana Garden has met or exceeded the goals of the project sponsors and designers. Its continued popularity attests to its enduring design, as evidenced by survey responses to third-party LAF.

• Has a high or very high aesthetic quality for 95% of 82 surveyed visitors who were asked to rate the beauty or attractiveness of the garden.
• Encourages physical activity, with 69% of 368 visitors on two June days observed as very active (48%) or walking (21%).
• Provides educational and cultural value. 65% of 82 surveyed visitors agreed the park’s art has helped them understand the site’s cultural and historical importance.
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Yanaguana Garden at Hemisfair

Category

Americas Region

Description

City: San Antonio
State/Province: Texas
Country: United States

Ron Nirenberg, Mayor of San Antonio, City of San Antonio:
“As a City Councilman, I saw the evolution of Hemisfair’s first phase of development take shape, from construction to grand opening. As mayor, I see Yanaguana Garden cementing itself as a cornerstone of the San Antonio community. Friends, family, kids, neighbors and out-of-town visitors can all find a sense of home when they visit, whether it’s to play for a whole day or stop by for an hour.”

Winner Status

  • Finalist