The city of Pasadena is on its way to developing its first new park space this century.
Preston Crenshaw Park, as it’s being called now, will be in an area roughly bounded by Crenshaw Road, Beltway 8 and Preston Avenue.
We’ll go with roughly because the park will be tucked behind several businesses, the Zion Lutheran Church and the Preston Trails South subdivision.
The most recent park in the city, Holly Bay Park, opened in the early 1990s through an interlocal agreement with Deer Park ISD.
“So, it’s been more than 20 years since we have added a new park,” said Pasadena Parks Director Jed Aplaca.
Preston Crenshaw Park will have a fairly sizable footprint.
“It’s a total of about 30 acres and the majority of it is taken up by a pond that’s already there,” Aplaca said.
The pond actually serves two purposes, one is to serve as a fishin’ hole, while the other is to catch stormwater runoff.
“When the pond was originally dug out, it was intended to be a fishing pond; so there were several deep holes,” Aplaca said.
Parts of the pond are as deep as 11 feet.
“It’s nice because it is not a square pond,” the parks director said. “It’s got some shape to it.”
Park plans are still in the design phase but are shaping up.
“In Phase 1, we’re going to have a parking lot, a walking trail around the pond and other amenities like trees along the trail, some park benches and we’ll also be adding some fountains or aerators to help the pond recirculate the water to keep the oxygen levels (where they should be),” Aplaca said. “It helps control the vegetation and keeps the water quality better.
“The parking lot will be accessible from Preston Drive and have about 20 spots.”
Phase 1 is expected to cost about $1.2 million
During the design phase, efforts are being made to keep the park insulated from the neighborhood and surrounding businesses and also return the greenspace to a more natural place.
“We’re going to keep a buffer between the neighborhood and the park,” Aplaca said. “There are already a lot of trees over there (but) we’ve been looking to remove some of the invasive species and plant better trees.
“There are a lot of Chinese tallow and McCartney rose (there) that are undesirable invasive species.”
Looking ahead, a fishing pier is on the wish list, as is a connection to the sidewalk along Crenshaw, Aplaca said.
“If you go to the west, you can get to Burke Crenshaw Park and if you go east you can get to Holly Bay Park, so, there can be great connections along the streets,” he said. “There is a right-of-way along one of the drainage areas along Crenshaw and our goal is to put a connection from the (walking trail) loop to Crenshaw.”
Progress on construction could come pretty quickly.
“We are in the design process right now and we should finish up the plans in the spring and then go out to bid,” the parks director said. “Hopefully, we’ll see a groundbreaking in late summer
“Depending on the weather (and other factors) we could be done by early next year.”
A portion of the park came to the city through a land swap that resulted from a Pasadena neighborhood’s resistance to a proposed location for a restaurant supply business.
“Restaurant Depot is a business that wanted to move to Pasadena,” Pasadena Mayor Jeff Wagner related in a recent state-of-the-city address. “Our (economic development corporation) got with them and bought the land at Preston and Beltway 8.”
But residents of Preston Trails South told city officials in 2016 that they did not want the business in their backyard.
That led to Pasadena swapping a city-owned piece of property on Genoa-Red Bluff Road for the plot on Preston. The restaurant supply business opened at the Genoa-Red Bluff site in 2020.
John DeLapp is a freelance writer. He can be contacted at texdelapp@gmail.com.