Behind San Jacinto Plaza’s redesign

for nearly a hundred years, san jacinto plaza’s layout remained largely unchanged. city officials say the decision to redesign it was based on the opportunity to give el pasoans a better park in the hear of downtown. abc-7’s darren hunt is live in downtown el paso with the details … darren. rick and estela, since talk of the san jacinto renovation plan began about five years ago, that plan developed over time. the initial plan called for the removal of the los legartos statue, but that all changed at a city council meeting back in 2011. “the committee consensus is the plan does not represent in general the character of inherent architectural and historical cultural elements of el paso.” at this city council meeting five years ago, local historian miguel juarez objected to a san jacinto plaza redsign plan paid for by el paso billionaire paul foster. the initial plan from s-w-a removed the los legartos statue from the plaza. “we had a park that didn’ function like a good central urban park should.” city re cortney niland recalls that meeting, which turned the focus back toward keeping the statue in its original spot. “originally it was a private- public partnership and i thank mr. foster for actually being the catalyst to get the ball rolling … the community got involved and was very emphatic about the designs and the preservation of the legartos and the things they wanted to see in their downtown … and i think what ultimately what they will see is their vision has come to fruition and its absolutely fabulous.” “one of the features of the new san jacinto plaza that was original to its design are these pathways, that extend all the way from the los legartos statue to the outskirts of the park, allowing people to enter it from any angle.” “the alligators i feel represen the soul of the community.” juarez said looking back, that 2011 meeting on the foster plan proved a turning point for the project. “he wanted something good for e paso but at the same time there need to be community input and there wasn’t … the whole intent was for us to provide input because it’s our plaza … the city council accepted about 90 percent of those recommendations.” “so the people are getting th park that the people wanted?” “absolutely … i think the ultimate design that we came up with now, pays homage to that but kicks it up on a metropolitan level that’s really state of the art.” juarez said it was worth the fight to keep los legartos here at the plaza. niland pointed out the same designers foster suggested and paid 250- thousand dollars for, s-w-a, developed the final plan for san jacinto as well. rick/estela. five fort bliss soldiers are accused of breaking into cars in far