City begins Front Street park upgrade

By Marc Robertson - Editor | February 18, 2026

“We aren’t where we should be on this…”

The locally based Martinez construction company has been awarded a contract by the city of Cotulla to begin making improvements to a downtown park beside the Union Pacific railroad line, following a Thursday, February 12, council vote.

Requests for bids had been posted by the city as part of its long-term downtown plans that include a landscaped picnic area on undeveloped land along Front Street.

A portion of the targeted property near the intersection with Hwy 97 includes a historical marker commemorating the ancient Camino Real trail, which carried tradesmen, pilgrims and missionaries, immigrants and settlers between the Gulf coast and the missions in San Antonio. The marker was unveiled in 1995 by District 21 Senator Judith Zaffirini.

The site represents a historically symbolic intersection between the ancient trade and missions route, the railroad line that brought new settlers and carried local goods, crops and oil to points north, the Front Street business district, and the onetime Pan-American Highway (Main Street) that stretched between Laredo and San Antonio, later known as Highway 81.

The Brush Country Museum and the Cotulla – La Salle County Chamber of Commerce were housed in a building at the site until being moved in 1998. A modern electronic marquee for the Chamber remains on a corner of the property.

A master plan for Cotulla’s public facilities, parks, recreation areas and points of historical interest was drafted after a series of public meetings in 2019 and included improvements to the vacant property along Front Street as well as upgrades to other open spaces.

Created with public input by Frank Architects of Laredo, commissioned by the city of Cotulla and its Main Street Program, the master plan was presented November 21, 2019, by Leslie Aboumrad in the Alexander Memorial Library, where local residents were able to add suggestions and critique designs.

While the plan largely included upgrades to landscaping and pedestrian walkways, parking and lighting at several sites in the city, it also envisioned a reflecting pond at Veterans Park, a trolley line linking downtown with the Plaza Florita, and a fairground-style carousel that a number of residents said they recalled seeing in Cotulla.

None of those features resurfaced in any city council talks on park upgrades after 2019.

Little action was taken on the plan, and pedestrian links between Mustang Creek, Front Street, Plaza Florita and other potential outdoor family recreation sites likewise remained as two-dimensional drafts at City Hall.

Under the new contract offered last week, the Martinez company will begin its work by replacing the curbing along the Front Street edge of the park, and the city expects to landscape the property with shaded picnic benches and trees.

The unanimous decision for the $28,000 job came only weeks after councilors learned from Nora Mae Tyler at the local historical commission that the imminent demolition of the Nueces River

Bridge on South Main Street by the Texas Department of Transportation may leave a donation of more than 2,500 feet of the 1930s-era ornate bridge railing to the city.

That railing, according to city councilors last month, may be used to form a visible barrier between the downtown picnic park and the railroad line.

“The master plan has been sitting around for five or six years,” City Administrator David Wright told the council last week. “We aren’t where we should be on this.”

“Investors have put millions into rehabilitating the historical buildings on Front Street,” Wright said, “and there’s a piece of property right across the street that hasn’t been touched.

“We want to replace the curbing on the street and then have a nursery come in and plant trees,” Wright said. “Then we can have tables with awnings, seating areas.”

The bid is based on concrete making up approximately $11,000 of the cost.

“This is the beginning,” Wright said of the City Hall goal to meet its 2019 draft. “Then we can move over to Veterans Park. The grass is terrible. Benches are starting to go sideways. The fountain is no longer pumping water. We need to put trees in that park also. I want to see grass there.”

Veterans Park downtown was named by the city council in the 1990s in commemoration of locals who served their country in the armed forces. For the previous 60 years it had been known as City Park, designed by the works project division of the Franklin Roosevelt administration in the mid-1930s with intersecting pedestrian walkways shaded by trees. The park existed only as an undeveloped open space when the La Salle County Courthouse was built in 1931. Designs for the site had been based on the premise that Cotulla residents would shop at businesses lining the park and would meet at the central location, although few such storefronts were ever built.

City Hall has yet to publish its plans for the Front Street park landscaping and features.

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