Performing Arts Center

The Performing Arts Center opened a decade ago. And the neighborhood is now edging toward realization.

Elaine D. and Charles A. Sammons Park, the plaza at the heart of the AT&T Performing Arts Center, was imagined as a populist urban oasis, a space that would become a destination -- teeming with life day and night. Now, six months after the opening, there’s one simple problem: where are the people? One of the park’s principal designers, Deb Mitchell with JJR Associates, the firm that teamed with French landscape designer Michel Desvigne to create Sammons Park, is taking a wait-and-see approach. We spoke with Mitchell about the park and designing a space that appeased the desires of donors, the venue architects, and the park designers themselves.