Georgetown's Blue Hole Is Getting $10 Million. The Algae Isn't Going Anywhere.

Georgetown is putting $10.15 million into Blue Hole Park. New restrooms, a reinforced riverbank, a real kayak launch, more parking, terraced lawns where the current mud slope sits. What the plan does not touch is the low dam that turns a stretch of the South Fork San Gabriel into the still, turquoise pool everyone drives to N. Austin Avenue to see. That dam is historic, so it stays exactly as it is, which means the same warm, slow-moving water that makes Blue Hole photogenic in June is the same water that grows algae and amoebas by August. The city isn't fixing that part. It can't.

If you already treat Blue Hole as your park, that distinction matters more than the dollar figure.

Why the water gets weird every summer

Blue Hole sits at the end of the South Fork of the San Gabriel, and it is not fed by Lake Georgetown, which sits upstream on the North Fork. The pool itself started as a limestone quarry cut sometime in the early 1900s, and the city has owned it since 1977. The low dams that hold the water back are what give it that clear, almost turquoise color most of the year, filtered through limestone bluffs on either side. They're also why the water sits instead of flowing through, which is exactly the condition algae and amoebas need to take hold once the heat sets in and the river's flow drops.

Georgetown Parks and Recreation director Kimberly Garrett, who has run the department for 20 years and lived in the city for 30, has been direct about what the city does and doesn't do here: it doesn't test the water for bacteria or publish results from anyone else who does. The signage at the park says swim at your own risk, and that's the actual policy, not just a liability disclaimer. During a June 2025 council discussion on the redesign, staff confirmed the obvious fix isn't on the table either: the dams are historic structures, so they can't be removed, even though removing them is the one change that would most directly solve the stagnant-water problem residents already know about.

So the $10.15 million is going everywhere except the one lever that would change the water itself.

What actually forced this project

The push to fix Blue Hole didn't start with a beautification wish list. It started with flood damage. Central Texas took on significant flooding over the July 4, 2025 weekend, and the San Gabriel came up fast through the park. Garrett, who has watched the river flood at least four times during her three decades in Georgetown, described what it does to the built environment in blunt terms: it takes the concrete, it takes the trail, it's washed away light poles and benches before. The park and its connecting trails closed again in late October 2025, this time for about two weeks, just to clear gravel that the flood had deposited along the riverbank.

That's the real starting point for this plan. Nearly 2,000 residents gave input between December 2024 and July 2025, and the flood damage from that summer shaped what came out of it. The result isn't a wish-list park redesign. It's a resilience plan for a park that sits in a floodplain and floods on a predictable, if irregular, schedule.

What's actually in the plan

Design firm Halff Associates, with project manager Aaron Cooper leading the work, has been on this since September 2024. The final concept that went to City Council in October 2025 includes:

• Reinforcement of the San Gabriel riverbank
• A canoe and kayak launch site
• Updated restrooms, built as single-user and vandal-resistant
• A picnic area and a nature play space built from rocks and boulders rather than standard playground equipment
• Additional parking and a roundabout drop-off area
• Terraced lawns
• Emergency vehicle access and a maintenance ramp for heavy equipment
• Intersection and crosswalk improvements near the park entrance

Georgetown currently has $7 million set aside against a $10.15 million estimate, so some of this could get phased in or scaled back depending on how the budget closes that gap. Design work is funded for the current fiscal year. Construction is targeted for early 2027, which means the park you're driving past today looks the same for at least one more full summer, possibly two, before shovels move.

Council members split on where the money should go first. District 4's Ron Garland has acknowledged the cost is going to be steep. District 1's Amanda Parr pushed for a phased approach specifically so the park stays usable while the work happens, rather than closing wholesale for a year or more. Another council member, French, argued the priority should be the park itself rather than parking and roundabouts, even though Halff's own resident survey flagged parking as one of the top complaints. That tension, spend on access versus spend on the park, is still playing out as the design phase moves forward.

One detail from the Halff study is worth sitting with if you've ever assumed Blue Hole is mostly a walk-up neighborhood spot: the typical Georgetown resident lives more than two miles from the park. Most people are driving to it, not walking over from a house six blocks away, even though it sits just five blocks north of the downtown Square. It functions as a citywide park that happens to have a historic downtown address, not a corner park for the blocks immediately around it.

What this means if you're swimming there this month

Nothing about the redesign changes how the park works right now. Blue Hole is open daily from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., there's no entry fee, and the entrance sits at West 2nd and Rock Street, tucked behind El Monumento restaurant. Free parking is available at the corner of 3rd and Rock or in the adjacent garage, though anyone who has tried to park there on a Saturday in July already knows that lot fills fast.

Flow and depth swing with rainfall, since there's no reservoir feeding the pool directly. A city gauge reading reported in May 2026 showed the river running around 95 cubic feet per second with a gauge height near 2.5 feet, which the city considers within its normal range of 2 to 3 feet. That's a useful baseline for judging conditions before you head over. Lower flow after a dry stretch tends to mean warmer, more stagnant water and a higher chance of the algae blooms Garrett's team already warns about. Jumping from the limestone cliffs that ring the swimming area is prohibited outright under city ordinance Section 12.20.050, not just discouraged.

A different way to use the park this fall

Once the water cools and the wading crowd thins out, Georgetown Parks and Recreation runs an Outdoor Adventure program that's easy to miss if you've only ever thought of Blue Hole as a summer spot. The next one on the South Fork itself is a Full Moon Paddle on Saturday, September 26, 2026, from 6:30 to 8 p.m., open to ages 12 and up. The city provides sit-on-top kayaks, paddles, and life jackets. You bring a water bottle, clothes you don't mind getting wet, and water shoes. It's a short trip, about 1.5 miles and 45 minutes to an hour, meeting right at the park entrance at 100 Blue Hole Park. Registration runs $40 for residents and $50 for non-residents.

It's a good way to see the same stretch of river from a different angle, and a reminder that Blue Hole's calendar doesn't end when the wading season does.

The honest version of what's coming

Ten million dollars sounds like it should fix everything wrong with a park. Here, it fixes the parts that flood, the parts that are falling apart, and the parts residents complained about in two years of surveys: parking, restrooms, a real boat launch. It does not touch the water chemistry that makes late-summer swims a little riskier than the postcard version of Blue Hole suggests. That's not a knock on the plan. It's a floodplain park with historic dam structures the city legally can't remove, and city staff have been straightforward that testing and treating the water was never part of the scope. Knowing that going in is more useful than finding out the hard way in September.

If you're weighing what a park like this means for a neighborhood you already call home, or you're curious how projects like this tend to move property values and buyer interest over time, the team at The Etzel Group tracks Georgetown closely, from the Square to the river. Our Georgetown neighborhood guide has more on what's shaping the area day to day. Let's connect, talk to Lesli about your property, or just ask what else is changing nearby.