The City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department has been hard at work at Patterson for the last month. After installing the new picnic tables for the pavilion that FoPP purchased with a grant from the Austin Parks Foundation, they kept working on a long series of improvements that have given the park a much appreciated overall update. To date these include:

1. picnic tables: new picnic tables have replaced the old plastic coated green tables throughout the park, and the cement picnic tables have all been power washed and gotten a fresh coat of paint. Two new picnic tables have been installed at the community garden.
2. benches: new benches have replaced the plastic coated green benches at the playground and basketball court
3. trash bins: the outdated “trash coffins” have been replaced at the pavilion and throughout the park with new trash bins. Only a few of the pebble-studded cement receptacles remain.
4. bathrooms: the limestone building has been power washed inside and out, and the peeling wood siding repainted
5. small pavilion: the dilapidated second pavilion located next to the basketball court has been rebuilt, and a new picnic table installed at the center.
6. pool: the pool shell is being refurbished, the filtration system is being repaired, and the chain link fence is going to be replaced with a wrought iron one.
7. pet waste dispensers: new dispensers have been installed throughout the park
8. bollards: half of the wood bollards lining the driveway into the park have been replaced with new posts, the rest will be shortly
9. playground: the broken gear and music panels on the toddler playscape have been replaced. There was a new clear bubble panel installed, and the music box was replaced with a new one.

What’s next? The pour-in-place rubber flooring on the playground has degraded over the years and been repaired several times. There are now several linear feet of concrete exposed next to the toddler playscape. PARD is closing the playground on March 27 to begin demolition. The pebbles will be removed, as will the pour-in-place flooring, to be replaced with the wood chips now standard in City of Austin parks. Work is expected to take 3-4 weeks.

We are deeply grateful for the attention and resources PARD has devoted to our neighborhood park. It has made a tremendous difference and Patterson is looking fantastic! We encourage you to take a walk around the park to see all the improvements sometime soon.

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Photos by Jennifer Potter-Miller