Pease Park's Next Phase Is Happening on the Windsor Road Slope

The City's parks blog described a cool, overcast Friday last March at Kingsbury Commons. Kids were on the climbing structure. A jogger was heading for the footbridge over Shoal Creek. About 300 yards northwest, a Texas Conservation Corps crew was heading into the brush on Windsor Hillside with a chainsaw and a bottle of blue-dyed herbicide.

Tomorrow night, Friday, Nov. 6, Pease Park Conservancy holds Luminarium at Kingsbury Commons. This year it is called "Phases," and the Conservancy describes it as a night to "celebrate what's next for Pease Park." For Old Enfield, whose western edge runs along the park, the useful part of that phrase is the gap between what has been planned and what is actually happening on the ground. The next phase of construction has no current funding commitment and no start date. The next phase of the park itself is already underway, a few hundred feet off Windsor Road.

The Plan Has One Finished Chapter

The Pease Park Vision Plan was written by the landscape firm Wallace, Roberts & Todd. The Austin City Council adopted it unanimously in October 2014, and it covers the whole park, from Wooten Woods and Gaston Green down to Polecat Hollow and Lamar Terrace. On the Conservancy's Vision Plan page, Phase 1, the renovation of Kingsbury Commons, is "now complete." Phase 2 gets one line saying that "planning is underway."

The City's 2014 planning matrix did put rough Phase 2 cost ranges on several park areas, but those were order-of-magnitude estimates from the planning stage, not money set aside for construction. The Luminarium event listing talks about stewardship and the park's future, but it names no project, no dollar figure and no groundbreaking. The Conservancy's page for Polecat Hollow, the area east of Shoal Creek just west of Lamar, describes a future entryway, better connections to CapMetro, riparian restoration and relocated volleyball courts. It gives no schedule.

So Kingsbury Commons, with its treehouse, amphitheater, Tudor Cottage and Great Lawn, is still the only part of the plan that has been built. Meanwhile, the work that is changing how the park looks and functions has been done by hand, on a steep slope, paid for one grant at a time.

Windsor Hillside, Restored in Small Pieces

When the Conservancy proposed restoring Windsor Hillside to the City in January 2023, more than 80% of the plants on the 226,593-square-foot slope were invasive, according to the City's May 13, 2026 account. The list included cat's claw, chinaberry, Japanese ligustrum and Chinese tallow. The average grade is 13.7%, steep enough that erosion is a constant risk.

That slope explains why the work goes slowly. Clearing it all at once would leave bare soil on a hill, and a TXCC crew leader told the City that the local birds, animals and soil have come to depend on the invasives. The project runs in a repeating cycle:

1. Crews cut a limited amount of invasive growth and paint each fresh stump with Garlon 3A, dyed blue so treated stumps are easy to spot. Signs are posted wherever herbicide is in use.
2. Cut brush is hauled up to the curb on Windsor Road. The yellow chinaberry berries and red nandina berries are stripped off, and the rest is chipped into mulch for the hillside.
3. Volunteers plant natives in season. Conservancy staff keep them alive with drip irrigation and hand watering.
4. Then the crews come back and clear the next section.

Park Operations Director Bret summed up the aim to the City:

"It's going to be wild. No beds, no borders or anything like that. It's about removing invasives and planting natives."

Volunteers have put more than 200 understory plants and trees on the slope. The south end now has pigeonberry, white mistflower, oaks, cedar elms, yaupon holly and Eve's necklace, plus a roughleaf dogwood that Bret singled out as "doing really well."

Timing matters this fall. The Conservancy hired TXCC crews from spring 2024 through fall 2026, so that contract period is ending now. The Conservancy said from the start that the restoration would take at least five years, which puts the finish line past the crews' current window.

The money comes from private fundraising and grants, including a $49,000 Urban Forestry Grant. The City's article says plainly that its own funding for ecological restoration on public land is limited. That is the link between this hillside and tomorrow's gala. Every ticket and raffle entry goes to the organization that pays for the work on that slope.

What the Hillside Work Uncovered Downhill

Paying close attention to the slopes has led the Conservancy to something below them. In early May, Conservancy staff came across Big Boulder Spring, which feeds Shoal Creek inside the park. The City's spring map shows a record there of Caecidotea reddelli, a rare, blind groundwater isopod found only in Central Texas and listed as a species of concern, as Horticulture Coordinator George Rojano explained in a Sept. 3 Conservancy post.

Randy Gibson and Justin Crow of the San Marcos Aquatic Resources Center told the Conservancy that the isopods' presence means the groundwater is not too polluted to support life. The isopod is also food for the Barton Springs Salamander, which raised the question of whether salamanders might live in or near Shoal Creek. Nathan Bendick, Conservation Program Supervisor with Austin Watershed Protection, scouted the spring with staff and lent them a net and sampling gear.

Staff have checked that net every other day since June, weather permitting. They have found Caecidotea reddelli and Stygobromus balconis, the Balcones cave amphipod, and sent some specimens to Austin Watershed Protection for study. No salamander has been recorded at the spring so far.

The Conservancy asks people not to go looking for the spring. The ground around it is very rough and full of poison ivy, and the isopods are best left alone.

Where the Finished Phase Gets Used Through Early December

Kingsbury Commons, the one completed part of the plan, is where nearly all of November's free events happen. The restoration work out on the slopes is what keeps the park around those events healthy. Here is what the Conservancy's events calendar lists for the rest of the season:

• Nov. 10 and Nov. 14: Lives Remembered: Black History in Pease Park. The park sits on part of the 365-acre Woodlawn homestead owned by Gov. E. M. Pease and Lucadia Pease. Research has found that at least 37 people were enslaved by the family or leased to it as enslaved labor, and the tour tells some of their stories.
• Nov. 10: Golden Frequencies Sound Bath in the Treehouse, with Sona Shala. Only 20 people can be on the net at the top of the Treehouse, and those spots cost $12. Listening at the base and across the trail is free.
• Nov. 11 and Nov. 18: Toddler Yoga with ATX Yoga Girl on the Great Lawn.
• Nov. 14: Puppet Show with Small Wonders, led by Joan Klasson at the amphitheater at Kingsbury Commons.
• Mid-November: Sunday Social: Yoga + Coffee, Gather & Flow's monthly all-levels class. The listing shows Nov. 15, but its registration link points to Nov. 22, so check the date before you go.
• Nov. 20: Birding at Pease Park with Chris Gunter, presented with Travis Audubon. Loaner binoculars are available, and the meeting spot is on the registration page.
• Dec. 6: Honky-tonk Two-stepping Lesson & Dance Party with J Wagner at the Tudor Cottage and Terrace.

The same calendar lists recurring volunteer days at Kingsbury Commons, called Restoration Thursdays, Foliage Fridays and Saturation Saturdays. Saturdays are open to all ages. The weekday sessions are for ages 13 and up, and anyone under 16 needs an adult. Volunteers are the ones who put more than 200 understory plants and trees on Windsor Hillside, so these sessions are the most direct way to help with the next phase.

If you walk north along the creek, the City still lists the Shoal Creek Trail from 24th to 29th Street as closed indefinitely because of landslide damage. The listing was last updated June 11, 2026.

For anyone attending Luminarium: the theme is "Celestial Whimsy, with a Western Flair," and Pecos Jane Vintage in East Austin is the official style sponsor. It will donate 10% of proceeds to the Conservancy when shoppers mention Luminarium before Nov. 6. Raffle tickets are open to Central Texas residents only, and winners do not need to be there to win.

At Lewis Group, we keep track of what is changing at the edges of Old Enfield, Pease Park included, because those changes shape daily life on the nearby streets. If you have a question about the neighborhood or what is coming next around the park, Contact Us.