February 25, 2025
Parking Lot to Wildlife Habitat Park: St. John Encampment Commons
Once jampacked with cars, this former Macy’s parking lot at shuttered Highland Mall now gathers another kind of community: people strolling winding paths of colorful wildlife-friendly plants.
In 2014, Austin Community College began renovating the mall as a vibrant campus. As projects developed, they worked with dwg. landscape architects to create a waterwise urban park that honors historic roots as home to the St. John Regular Missionary Baptist Association.
We watched the park take shape since groundbreaking in 2021. In late May 2024, we met with Dr. Molly Beth Malcolm, ACC Emeritus Executive Vice Chancellor, Daniel Woodroffe, president of dwg., and Cassie Gowan, dwg. design director. “We wanted to keep the old mall and see what we could do rather than tear it down to build it and make it sustainable. But part of that plan was to have beautiful green spaces. At the time, about 97% of this area was impervious cover, and we wanted to bring it back to be beautiful spaces for our students, faculty, staff and the community,” Dr. Malcolm said.
Bordered by Wilhelmina Delco Drive and Hage Drive, “This was a story about converting parking lots to parks. But it was so much more than that. It was about adaptive reuse. It was about celebrating the role and importance of water and water management,” Daniel told us. “Of native plants, of understanding a sense of taking a neighborhood that was devoid of parks and open spaces and giving a place to gather and come together.”
In 2022, plants were still very young. Some were still recovering from Winter Storm Uri’s pounding just weeks after installation.
A few things got nipped, but most were unscathed, since Carrie had selected bulletproof trees, perennials and native bunch grasses. “It’s a huge testament to the resiliency of native plants,” she said. She layered evergreens with spikes of seasonal color. A million-gallon cistern and Austin Energy’s reclaimed water system irrigate the campus.
Some of the heritage live oaks were transported from other parts of the former mall grounds. But they were placed on high mounds of soil over the asphalt. So, dwg. stitched them together to form the amphitheater.
Cassie layered them with native trees, including lacey oak, Mexican buckeye, redbud, yaupon holly and possumhaw holly. She pairs vibrant color with soothing whites and silvers that glisten during late night strolls after class.
In the low point next to the UFCU Pavilion, they created a deep sponge garden to slow down stormwater and soak it into the soil. Here, Cassie planted Mexican sycamore, bald cypress, possumhaw holly, sabal minor, switchgrass, Gulf muhly and groundcover frogfruit. Everything has doubled in size (at least) since this fall 2023 photo!
Under the pavilion’s softened light, every season celebrates a new viewpoint.
Cassie’s color palette subtly complements the purple light poles representing ACC’s mascot, the Riverbats.
Every season is swoonworthy, but especially in fall: fragrant, white-flowered almond verbena, frothy Gulf muhly, Lindheimer muhly, ‘Henry Duelberg’ salvia, and asters.
“A lot of times a park might have just turf at the edges. We wanted it to feel more wild and fuzzy and a nod to the native grasses,” Cassie said. On one sidewalk, she combines sideoats grama, blue grama, Mexican feather grass, and switchgrass.
Along Hage Drive, little bluestem companions with state grass sideoats grama and blue grama. Again, these grasses have filled in quite a bit since this shot.
“We love turning parking lots into parks and taking basically a lifeless, dead place and bringing life into it,” Cassie said.
There’s nectar for pollinators and hummingbirds; berries for birds, and yes, even nectar for the bats!
“We can have a convocation here. We can have gatherings. You can have a class here. Someone else could just be enjoying their coffee, listening to the birds and watching the squirrels and seeing the grackles,” Dr. Malcolm said. “And then, of course, the beautiful scenery is here.”
“You go from maybe one bird, a grackle kind of pooping on everyone’s cars, to now, this kind of cornucopia of species, this kind of refuge,” Daniel added. “It’s been a really remarkable story of transformation.”
Plant list for St. John Encampment Commons
Thank you for stopping by!
