Seguin unveils newly transformed park space

(Seguin) — Seguin is proving that once a park, always a park, even if it’s 50-plus years later. The laughter and smiles of local kids have officially returned to central Seguin with the re-grand opening of Bauer Park, located on East College Street.

Dozens turned out Thursday morning to welcome the large inclusive playground, large pavilion, walking trail, grill and fitness station. Prior to it once being the site of the old Seguin Public Library, the property served as Seguin’s first park, dating back to 1910.

Jack Jones, the Seguin Parks and Recreation director, says the vision to return to that original landmark came soon after the city chose to leave the property empty.

“Of course, you know the story. The library is not here. The library moved over towards downtown and it was nothing out here. Kind of the inspiration of this came from a young girl at the time. She’s 14 now — 7-year-old Piper Perry. She’s not here. She moved to Wisconsin with her family, but she sent the city council at the time a picture of what her vision of this park should be. She got recognized by the city council. So that was the inspiration for this park. It was f Piper Perry back in 2018. Fast forward to the park’s master plan in 2020, the folks who live in this neighborhood, the majority wanted a park, wanted a playground but also open space — trees, a walking trail — things like that,” said Jones.

Seguin Mayor Donna Dodgen is excited to have the park in her neighborhood. Dodgen says pairing the history of the park with the city’s future is a win-win for the entire community.

“I live also in this neighborhood as does past Mayor Don Keil and his wife and we too drive by, see this and it’s just been amazing. You know the Bauer Family meant for this to be a park. I heard the story from Betsy Bauer that talked about how they lived in this area – it gives me chills – and they would come down here and the kids would come down here and play and congregate and we want that again. That’s about community and we are community. We might be growing and changing but we still have that community feel and we want to keep that. We are working really hard to keep that providing the things that we want to do for quality of life – eating out and shopping and those sorts of things but continuing to keep our feel because we are in such a great location to do things as well within the region but still keeping our feel and providing for our citizens,” said Dodgen.

Also giving particular praise to those who have worked non-stop on the project is Seguin City Councilman District 7 Jason Biesenbach. Biesenbach says he’s thrilled about having the new park in the district that he serves.

“It’s a great turnout. I’m super excited to see this many people here today. The best part, honestly, is the kids being out here being able to play already, right? This is what this is all about is community. To be out here and having a good time and just these kids being able to enjoy this. I definitely want to give a shoutout to the guys that were here working during this unbelievably hot summer. We live right up the street here and we walk through here every day, and these guys were out here at 7 a.m., 7:30 a.m. and they were trucking it until they couldn’t handle it anymore and so hats off to those guys for really putting in the work and just everybody that donated. All of our community sponsors, we want to thank them. A special thanks to our parks advisory board. They meet on their own time to kind of come up and make sure that we have good quality of life things here in the city and I just want to recognize them and say thank you very much,” said Biesenbach.

Although adults were quite happy, those who were most excited about the new park were the kids who couldn’t get enough of the climbing, sliding, and spinning during the opening ceremony.

But not everyone who lives around the corner and who has been keeping up with the daily progress of the park could make it to Thursday’s ribbon cutting. It was in those cases, that parents like Tara Maddi ensured that her 8-year-old daughter Malena got her very own sneak peek.

“Well, my youngest daughter was excited so we kind of snuck in before school this morning before the ribbon cutting but she’s been waiting all summer and I think it’s a great addition to the area,” said Maddi.

Although dubbed as a neighborhood park, city officials say the park is for everyone. Appreciating the new park space and its location on the city’s east side is Jazmine Aviles. Aviles, who was helping her two-year-old brother Sabastian up the stairs of the playscape, says she looks forward to having somewhere more convenient to spend time with her brother.

“I actually don’t live in this area but it’s closer to the high school. I have family over in the high school so I can drop them off and come here with him,” said Aviles.

Although the park is open for business, the city is still awaiting the installation of the irrigation system. A drinking water station with a pet bowl should also be in place by mid-October.

Seguin City Manager Steve Parker says piecing together Bauer Park has been a genuine team effort with a number of corporate and community partners, like Niagara Water Bottling, Caterpillar, and the Guadalupe County MHMR agency, who all have helped fund three inclusive playscape pieces and two park benches.

Parker says he especially applauds the parks office and the city’s engineering team for helping to bring this park to fruition. He says Bauer Park is just the latest enhancement of the town to enjoy.

“With the American Rescue Funds, our city council, I’m so proud of them, because they wanted to take that money and invest it in our quality-of-life assets, so we are putting in almost $4 million into our parks system over the next several years. It started with the pickleball courts. Now, we have Bauer Park. We’ve got improvements to Juan Seguin Park. We’ve done basketball courts. We are going to do some improvements at Starcke Park with some old stuff that we had to take but I love the way the city is changing for the better and getting the assets that we want in our community. Doing it all the while with decreasing the tax rate over the last several years because we do have strong growth. We are starting to see the sales tax coming in that has been leaving our city for years and years and years. People leave here to go shop and eat and so forth and now we are getting all of these stores like Discount Tire and Marshals and Ross. Those are the big changes in funding sources that we haven’t had in our community before,” said Parker.

Construction on the new park began in early June. The park is located at 707 E. College St.