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<\/a>\u201cAnd so what we have is a park that is being loved to death,\u201d said T\u00f3mas Herrera-Mishler, new executive director and chief executive officer of the Balboa Park Conservancy.<\/p>\n
\u201cBalboa Park is accommodating extreme levels of visitors on a daily basis, but the park was never designed to accommodate so many,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to adaptively change the landscape to handle the level of visitation while preserving the essence of what makes the landscape special, historic, unique.\u201d<\/p>\n
A seasoned landscape architect and urban planner, Herrera-Mishler has had first-hand experience working in landscapes that have had to adjust to extreme new levels of visitation.<\/p>\n
For example, from 2008 to 2014, Herrera-Mishler led the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy\u2019s innovative and uniquely successful public-private partnership with the city of Buffalo to operate and restore Buffalo\u2019s historic Olmsted Parks System, the nation\u2019s first park system. He helped to secure over $30 million for capital-improvement projects toward the implementation of the park system\u2019s visionary master plan.<\/p>\n
Herrera-Mishler assumed leadership of the Balboa Park Conservancy June 16. The conservancy is a new and old organization at the same time. It\u2019s new because it was founded in 2012, and it\u2019s old because it merged with 94-year-old Balboa Park Central (formerly the House of Hospitality), the organization that included the House of Hospitality, the Visitors\u2019 Center and Balboa Park Marketing.<\/p>\n A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the Conservancy is responsible for raising funds, developing public-private partnerships and collaborating with Balboa Park stakeholders to implement capital projects, address deferred-maintenance needs, and seek solutions to accessibility needs in the park. It also operates as partners with the city of San Diego, which owns Balboa Park, and with other park stakeholders to carry out its mission.<\/p>\n \u201cA public-private partnership is a lot like a life-saving transplant; you take a struggling body and put new life in it,\u201d Herrera-Mishler said. \u201cYou always have to balance and it\u2019s not easy, but they can yield amazing results.<\/p>\n \u201cAs we address important ways to reconnect the park to the community, improve access, circulation and parking, we will be working together on huge things that are very expensive and are going to require federal, state and local government support as well as major philanthropic support. It\u2019s going to entail all of us working together to leverage those funds for what needs to happen here to improve access and sustainability, not just the friends of the park but all of the stakeholders.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s amazing to Hererra-Mishler is there\u2019s a sort of myth that Balboa Park is done, and the reality is that it\u2019s far from completed.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the moment we have just half a park out there, but it\u2019s a great half,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n According to Hererra-Mishler, much of the east mesa and Florida Canyon have yet to be developed into what the Master Plan calls for.<\/p>\n \u201cNow when you look at the east mesa, what do you see? A landfill and what I fondly call \u2018the city\u2019s truck gulag,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a temporary use, but temporary uses have a way of sticking around, he added.<\/p>\n Hererra-Mishler is strongly in favor of fully implementing the 1989 Master Plan developed by San Diego\u2019s landscape architect and urban planner, Vicki Estrada of Estrada Land Planning.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s still evergreen; the goals of that plan remain right on target,\u201d Herrera-Mishler said. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the best park master plans I have come across, and I\u2019ve seen a lot of them.\u201d<\/p>\n He believes that if the park were to fully implement the Master Plan and keep it maintained at a high level, the economic benefits to the city would really be dramatic.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of recent research that shows that well-maintained parks enhance the visual character of a city, improve our quality of life and boost our economic vitality,\u201d he continued. \u201cBalboa Park\u2019s potential has yet to be fully tapped.\u201d<\/p>\n To San Diego\u2019s benefit, Balboa Park is a \u201cdestination\u201d park in addition to serving as a \u201cmunicipal\u201d park. Destination parks attract cultural tourists \u2014 people who travel farther to get there, spend more time and more money, stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, and shop. And their expectations for maintenance in a destination park are higher than a municipal park. While the city provides a good level of maintenance in the park by municipal standards, Herrera-Mishler thinks we can do better.<\/p>\n \u201cIn order to attract the cultural tourist to San Diego we need to make sure that our premiere cultural tourist destination meets or exceeds their expectations. And we have some work to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Conservancy is planning on doing a lot of \u2018friend-raising,\u2019 in other words, cultivating folks who can support the organization. One way of doing that is to have a tangible thing to be funded, like restoration of the Botanical Building.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a wonderful, tangible project; it\u2019s a building that just requires a new lease on life to be around for another 100 years,\u201d Herrera-Mishler said.<\/p>\n With a master\u2019s degree in landscape architecture and regional planning, and a specialization in urban design from the University of Michigan, Herrera-Mishler understands that landscape architects have a big and important role to play, adjusting the way we use and enjoy our landscapes, and the aesthetics of our landscape to accommodate global climate change and weather.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are faced with the reality of the drought conditions and need to design landscapes to accommodate lower water supplies,\u201d Herrera-Mishler said. \u201cBut we can do it in a way that\u2019s sustainable, historical, beautiful \u2014 isn\u2019t that exactly what landscape architects are all about?\u201d<\/p>\n Based on his past, Herrera-Mishler will be making his mark in the park. He was named Preservation Hero 2013 by the Library of American Historic Landscapes and was awarded the 2014 Gold Leaf Award by the New York State Arborists Association.<\/p>\n The Cultural Society of Buffalo gave him an Outstanding Community Leader Award in 2014. The Upstate New York Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects named him Outstanding Leader in Landscape Architecture in 2015.<\/p>\n \u201cMy whole career I\u2019ve tried to work at the nexus of arts and culture and public landscape,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s been my whole career, and usually one of those elements is missing and I have had to inject it. In Balboa Park, it\u2019s all here. In spades.\u201d<\/p>\n For more information about the Balboa Park Conservancy, visit balboapark.org\/conservancy<\/a>. Follow Tomas Herrera-Mishler on Twitter @thmisler<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>