I just read this article where the City of Austin claims to be making efforts to clean up Waller Creek. They are attempting to make the area more dining, walking and hang out friendly after getting a lot of complaints of theft and other crimes in the area.
So what are they doing? They are trimming some trees and picking up some trash. Not likely to be enough. I love Waller Creek and think that the City of Austin is wasting the area by not encouraging restaurant and retail development there. Currently, the only thing you can find along Waller Creek is some failed development ideas by local businesses, a lot of trash and sludge, the Arch Center and the Salvation Army. I definitely think that it’s great for Austin to have centers like the Arch Center, but I do think that magnets of vagrancy correlate to incidents of theft and other petty crimes. To truly renew the area and turn it into a commerce center, the City is going to have to address the vagrancy issue in the area and possibly move the Arch Center and Salvation Army.
I saw a story News 36 did over the weekend on that trail. It looked like a bunch have druggies had taken the place over. The city needs to do something.
That place is hipster mecca, they should open an american apparel next to the sludge!!!
The city is planning for a major flood control project on Waller starting next year. After that’s done, presumably, is when new development might start to kick in.
This is from the city’s main waller creek project info page:
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/wallercreek
The Waller Creek Tunnel Project is a proposed underground stormwater bypass tunnel from Waterloo Park to Lady Bird Lake near Waller Beach. The tunnel will be 22-feet in diameter and almost one mile long. The project is expected to remove an estimated 1,243,000 square feet of land from the floodplain of the lower Waller Creek watershed, will allow denser development in a very desirable area of downtown, and divert floodwaters that create erosion problems and safety concerns.
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The Waller Creek District Master Plan will produce a master plan for the redevelopment of the Waller Creek corridor and the surrounding district. To learn more, visit the Vision/Master Plan page.
When Austin gets their own “River Walk” what reason will people have to go to San Antonio?
Is the River Walk an actual reason to go to San Antonio?