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Chapter Eight: Hermann Park Conservancy
- Texas A&M University Press
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anything else was built in the park, a master plan was needed. Although the Friends were committed to building the Heart of the Park’s winning scheme, they decided to integrate it with a comprehensive plan of improvement for the park. In addition, because the winning scheme was over budget, the design needed refinement. While facilitating the Friends’ coherence into a functioning organization , Piacentini submitted grant applications, generated publicity, expanded membership, and began to formulate an institutional identity .2 Her major commitment was ensuring that a master plan for the park was commissioned. She wasted no time in getting the City Parks and Recreation Department to approve the commissioning of such a plan and gathering credentials of park planners qualified to take on this project. The field was narrowed to three finalists. By the summer of 1993, the Philadelphia landscape architect Laurie Olin, of Hanna/Olin Ltd., was selected. As the Friends of Hermann Park confronted political and financial issues, Olin’s team went to work. The master plan was funded with grants from the Brown Foundation, ExxonMobil, the Ray C. Fish Foundation, Houston Endowment Inc., the Samuels Foundation , the Rockwell Fund, Continental Airlines, and the Wortham Foundation. With the support of Mayor Lanier and the Parks Department , the master plan began to take shape (see chapter 9 for more information). The executive director and key board members of the Friends of Hermann Park collaborated to obtain significant grants. Board member Marley Lott emphasizes that it was a grant from the Lila Wallace– Reader’s Digest Fund in 1996 that gave Hermann Park the credibility it needed to facilitate fund-raising in Houston. She recalls that when grant R ick Dewees, Hermann Park administrator for the City of Houston Parks and Recreation Department, was aware that three groups were working separately for improvements in the park. When the Rice Design Alliance entered the picture with its proposal for the Heart of the Park Competition, it was time to introduce these groups to each other. The Neighbors and Friends agreed to join together as one group, called the Friends of Hermann Park, with Patricia Nelson, organizer of the Neighbors of Hermann Park, as the first president. The Articles of Incorporation were signed in 1992. Developer John Hansen (who had served on the competition jury) donated an office for the Friends of Hermann Park, and Susan Keeton volunteered as the first part-time executive director. It was in this capacity that Keeton met with Jack Mitchell concerning rejuvenation of the Sam Houston Monument –Reflection Pool axis. Within the next year the Joggers, Runners, and Walkers also merged with the Friends of Hermann Park and Marvin Taylor joined the board of the new organization. The group immediately tripled in size and threw its weight behind the RDA competition. However, once the competition was over, the Friends’ board of directors realized that the lack of a professional staff with the organizational ability to raise funds and build the Heart of the Park project was a serious problem. Mary Anne Piacentini, with a Master’s degree in city and regional planning from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and experience in the management of nonprofit organizations, was hired as the first full-time, professional director in 1993. Piacentini began to build the organization, and it was with her leadership and guidance that the Friends of Hermann Park board of directors understood that, before CHAPTER EIGHT Hermann Park Conservancy The Hermann Park Conservancy is a citizens’ organization dedicated to the stewardship and improvement of Hermann Park—today and for generations to come.1 —Mission Statement, Hermann Park Conservancy, 2004 110 Chapter Eight was responsible for seeing that the Olin master plan became a reality. A ten-year strategic plan, “Action 2000,” was implemented in 2000 to guide the conservancy as it launched a phased approach in constructing both major and minor projects recommended in the master plan. The conservancy lost Okan-Vick in 2002 when Mayor Lee P. Brown appointed her director of the Parks and Recreation Department. She went from that position to become executive director of the Houston Parks Board, a powerful and effective nonprofit group that supports park projects throughout the city, including some in Hermann Park. When Okan-Vick left the conservancy, the board engaged Doreen Stoller as its executive director in 2003. Stoller’s education and experiofficers from the Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund visited Houston to look at the proposed project in Hermann...