Cole Park Storm Water Detention Vault
by Paula Bosse
Why, yes, this IS in Uptown… (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Underneath Cole Park (which is behind North Dallas High School and between Cole and McKinney), is a “storm water detention vault” — a cavernous space where storm water runoff goes when the capacity of the Mill Creek storm sewer system has been exceeded. It can hold 71 million gallons of storm water. …71 million gallons!
From a 2014 Facebook post from the Turtle Creek Association:
Completed in 1993, the vault’s 13 chambers, each of which rises five stories tall and runs the length of more than two football fields, are designed to fill with water during extreme rainfall. These massive vaults capture the storm water from Central Expressway and slowly release it into Turtle Creek via the Mill Creek Outfall by the footbridge in William B. Dean Park (next to the Kalita Humphrey Theater).
I had no idea that Dallas had anything like this until I saw the short film, below, in which Gilbert Aguilar, Assistant Director of the City of Dallas’ Department of Street Services, takes us on a tour of the “detention vault.” This is an absolutely mind-blowing look at something very, very few Dallasites know about. The City of Dallas probably wouldn’t be willing to grant access to movie-makers, but, seriously, this would make an INCREDIBLE movie set — perhaps less aesthetically appealing than the sewers of Vienna featured in The Third Man, but what it lacks in character it makes up for in sheer gigantic-ness.
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The video, “Living With the Trinity: Cole Park Vault,” is on YouTube, here. Though not credited in the video itself, it is, presumably, a production of local filmmaker, Mark Birnbaum, whose website is here.
Top image is a screengrab from the video.
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
the bowels of Big D
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I love the secret underground spots of Dallas
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Woah that’s pretty cool I didn’t know about this!
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Thanks! I was pretty surprised when I found out about it, too.
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[…] a little Dallas infrastructure secret that we missed in our Hidden Dallas edition: the Cole Park Storm Water Detention Vault. It’s an un-sexy name for an un-sexy facility that performs a rather un-sexy function. And […]
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[…] you, Peter Simek, for the link to the Flashback Dallas post “Cole Park Storm Water Detention Vault” on the D Magazine Frontburner blog! My original post — which I wrote as the period of […]
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[…] b. Demand for storm water sewers and sanitary sewer. Does not make sense to put storm water and sanitary water systems under the proposed route due to higher slopes vs. using the existing river bed, gravity model for water conveyance suggests drainage should be along he river. It might be possible to place all three systems within and below the river bed (surface water run off, sanitary sewer, and storm water). FYI when Central Expressway in Dallas was expanded TxDOT built a system of catacombs under Cole Park to store storm water. It was not possible to drain the excess run off generated by widening the highway plus it was too expensive to build a second drainage system; thus, storm water was stored and then pumped into existing drainage pipes as capacity was made available (storm water management vs. storm water conveyance). https://flashbackdallas.com/2015/05/17/cole-park-storm-water-detention-vault/ […]
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[…] “COLE PARK WATER DETENTION VAULT.” I found this COOL video when we were in the midst of heavy flooding in the spring, and now I know […]
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[…] https://flashbackdallas.com/2015/05/17/cole-park-storm-water-detention-vault/ […]
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Halff Associates designed the Cole Park detention project as part of the reconstruction of Central Expressway. The existing Mill Creek Diversion was incorporated in the system.
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Thanks, Stefano. It’s VERY impressive!
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I worked on this project . I have a few pictures. I’d like to see to take a tour of it. Jerry Casey
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