New event venue: LH Town Center amphitheater

This Saturday’s Oktoberfest is the first event to book the amphitheater, says Jill Beam, the Dallas park department reservations manager. (By the way, Oktoberfest organizers Tate Gorman and Adam Meierhofer are our guests on this week’s podcast, so make sure to listen Tuesday morning.)

The next event will be on Sunday, Nov. 6 — the third annual Granger Smith concert to benefit the LHHS Wranglers. Beam says that a third amphitheater event is tentative.

The amphitheater is perhaps the highlight of the 20-acre park that Lake Highlands Town Center developer Prescott Realty constructed as part of its 70-acre retail and residential project. After building it, Prescott gave it to the city of Dallas, so the park land is open for public use. The Woodrow Wilson High School seniors were at the amphitheater this past Saturday evening to take homecoming photos, for example.

Because the city owns the land, the park department currently is booking all amphitheater events. You can take pictures there for free, but to use the electricity and lighting, you have to pay a fee, which is based on estimated attendance, Beam says. The venue can be booked by filling out the special event application on the dallasparks.org website. Beam says the city is working on an agreement with the Lake Highlands Public Improvement District so that soon, the PID will be booking all events at the Town Center.

When that happens, the park department’s only responsibility at the Town Center will be to sit back and own the park land. As park planning manager Michael Hellmann says, “It’s the best park we’ve never built.”

If you missed our video of the Town Center park, now formally named “Watercrest Park,” when the park was first completed last spring, watch it below.