WALLER PARK
PLACE

Waller Park Place will be an urban oasis destination at the cross trails of
 Waller Creek and Lady Bird Lake. With easy freeway access and a signature location next to the Austin Convention Center, residents, visitors, workers, walkers, and joggers will enjoy cafés, coffee shops, markets, dining terraces, lounges, restaurants, bars, and entertainment in the shaded environment of the reinvented Waller Creek corridor. The combination of uses, connection with the natural creek corridor, native materials, and pedestrian amenities will create a unique, yet authentic and laid back Austin experience.The design approach to the site is driven by the historic and physical influence by which Waller Creek has sculpted the site over time. The creek banks are envisioned to be stabilized by native bedrock to create the project foundation and celebrate the organic and fluid shaping of its edges. This sculptural landscape approach combined with sweeping pathways and trails will create a series of interconnected transitions, terraces, and pedestrian experiences shaped by the hydrology and current of Waller Creek.The lower terraces are formed by large, rustic stone blocks similar to those found throughout the creek corridor. These walls provide spatial definition and an opportunity to provide seating, planting pockets, and special features such as the proposed weeping wall visible from trails, the convention center, and Cesar Chavez Street. The weeping wall will celebrate the value of groundwater and provide auditory art while within the creek canyon.The creek bottom trail will weave from bank to bank and provide users with water access and barrier-free access north and south. Braided paths in the spirit of creek hydrology will seamlessly connect the creek bottom trail to terrace level dining patios and ultimately to core development entry plazas and street level gateways to adjacent districts and amenities. These mid- and upper-level terraces are formed by storefronts and refined stone walls building from the rustic stone foundation of the creekside banks. These terraces provide a complimentary yet diverse menu of public and private user experiences, solar exposure, and off-site views of the creek corridor north and south, as well as Lady Bird Lake.Waller Center Cove will be a signature feature of the project and a photo opportunity for all to discover. Positioned within the structure of the creek corridor where a natural eddy might form, the Cove water course emanates from headwaters at the base of the residential tower, flows quietly by the auto court, hotel restaurant terrace and residential tower lobby and lounge before plunging more than thirty vertical feet to the creek cove below. A series of falls and crossings will provide visitors with a dramatic visual and sensory experience.Pedestrian and vehicular access to the project from adjacent streets and neighborhoods will flow seamlessly through three building towers just as 
the creek below will braid naturally creating islands, eddies and channels. Streetscape design along Cesar Chavez and Red River Streets will comply with Austin Great Streets Program and create a unified street presence forth project.