The Broadway corridor has the potential to become San Antonio’s great urban avenue, as it stretches from the airport right into the heart of downtown. Recent developments along the corridor and renewed interest in Broadway’s future have generated much discussion about what becoming an “urban” city might actually mean, however. Nearly fifty percent of Broadway’s urban landscape is flanked by parking space, while nearly all spaces along the corridor are tied to businesses, leaving almost no public space for people to gather as citizens and not consumers.
On April 28 at Brick within the Blue Star Arts Complex, Dr. Antonio Petrov, assistant professor of architecture at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) College of Architecture, Construction and Planning, and a team of students will present and exhibit “1000 Parks and a Line in the Sky: Broadway, Avenue of the Future,” an updated version of their 50-foot-long model of Broadway and accompanying design proposal. The event will be part exhibit, part conversation and part public engagement, bridging the past and future to encourage the community’s active participation in shaping their city. Petrov’s “think/do-tank” presented an earlier version of the ongoing project during a two-night exhibition in December of 2015 at the Alamo Heights Fire Station and Brick. In March of 2016, the new model was exhibited at the Build Your Own Broadway event held at the Pearl Stables.
The roundtable discussion will feature Ashley Heeren of Lake│Flato Architects, O. Ricardo Pimentel of the San Antonio Express-News, Mark Reagan of the San Antonio Current, Luis Muñoz of Bauhaus Media Group, Julia Murphy of the Cibolo Nature Center & Farm, and Dr. Antonio Petrov of UTSA.
About “1000 Parks and a Line in the Sky: Broadway, Avenue of the Future”
The proposal engages with the city, and Broadway, on the ground by presenting 1000 frameworks for potential parks that are currently unused interstitial spaces along the corridor. It also explores San Antonio’s history of traveling in the sky through the Brackenridge Park and Hemisfair “Skyride,” which allowed people to experience the city from a completely new vantage point until 1999. The Expander “think/do-tank” hopes to expand their understanding of public parks, public engagement, and what alternative transportation systems can be as they attempt to involve the community in designing a Broadway avenue of the future.