Guadalupe River Center offers to take over park development so city can redirect $2.2 million to flood repairs

The Upper Guadalupe River Center is proposing to take over from the City of Kerrville — and the city may say yes.

The city had previously approved $2.2 million in bond funds to develop Granger MacDonald Park on the waterfront site directly in front of the planned River Center. With Kerrville now facing an estimated $150 million in flood damages against a city reserve of only $14 million, the UGRC board is offering to absorb that park development cost entirely — freeing the city to redirect the bond funds to repair the battered River Trail and other damaged infrastructure.

The Kerrville City Council is scheduled to debate the proposal next week.

“We don’t want to keep waiting for the park to get built,” Chairman Layng Guerriero said Thursday on Lead Live’s Nonprofit Week. “But most importantly, we want the city to use those funds to repair existing parks.”

The proposal carries urgency beyond finances. The land was donated seven years ago by Thompson Partners under then-Mayor Bonnie White under a legal condition: if a park is not built on the property, ownership reverts to the original donors. The UGRC taking on the development not only relieves city budget pressure but preserves the land’s public future.

Guerriero framed the community’s immediate priority plainly.

“What we need to do right now is get people back in their homes,” he said. “It’s about mold. It’s about repair and healing.”

The floods that created this pivot also confirmed something the UGRC had suspected: their chosen site is among the most flood-resilient parcels on the Guadalupe. The center will be built on the south side of Nimitz Lake, on the inside curve of the river. During both the 2025 and 2026 floods, the destructive currents that tore apart the outside bank left the inside in comparatively good shape.

“We’re on the inside of the curve of the river,” Guerriero said. “All the torrential currents and the destructive forces are on the outside of the river. But on the inside you have less velocity and you have just basic flooding. You don’t have crazy, concrete-tearing current.”

The facility itself is designed as Kerrville’s “community living room” — a public hub for recreation, water access, education, and social gathering. The main building will include a multipurpose room large enough to seat 200 people, which Guerriero noted covers the needs of roughly 80% of community events. An administrative and watercraft facility will provide offices, locker storage, and outdoor changing areas. The site will also feature a dog shower and electric vehicle charging stations.

The center’s most distinctive design element is its River Access Ramp. Standard boat ramps are 20 feet wide with a 15-degree incline — steep enough to create significant difficulty for elderly users and people with disabilities. The UGRC ramp will be 40 feet wide with a 7-degree gradient, meeting full wheelchair accessibility standards.

“If you’re in a wheelchair, you can roll down there and get on a kayak,” Guerriero said.

Adjacent to the ramp, a 14-foot-wide, 200-foot-long boardwalk will feature specialized floating piers with a custom roller system that allows users to slide in and out of watercraft without the balance risk of a standard launch. Dedicated dog ramps will run alongside.

The floods also produced an unexpected conservation opportunity. UGRA General Manager Tara Bushnoe provided the UGRC with 10 ancient cypress trees that fell in recent storms. The trees have been milled and are currently drying on Water Street. They will eventually become furniture, art pieces, and functional items sold to raise funds for riparian restoration.

Three programs are driving the push to complete construction. The Kerrville Triathlon Festival — which had to cancel its swim portion this year due to flood damage — will have permanent entry and exit infrastructure at the River Center. Schreiner University is launching a collegiate sailing team in fall 2027, a commitment that requires water access the River Center will provide. And the “Let’s Go to the Lake” community gathering, which packed out in May, will have a permanent home.

The UGRC has raised more than $3.5 million from more than 300 individual donors. Naming rights — ranging from $2,500 to $300,000 or more — are available to raise the remaining $1.5 million. Davis and Tobias of Boerne has been hired as architect of record, with structural engineering and the River Trail master plan handled by Hewitt Engineering of Kerrville. Local contractor Kevin Bernhard is lined up for construction. Groundbreaking is planned for the first quarter of 2027, contingent on the city’s land transfer being finalized.

The architectural and construction committees meet in two weeks.

Naming opportunities and donor information: guadaluperivercenter.org.