Kimbell’s parking lot a lot like a park

It was bittersweet a few years back when the Kimbell Art Museum announced plans to expand with what is now the Renzo Piano Pavilion.

The new building turned out to be beautiful, a grand new home for exhibitions of glorious art, and at the same time it gave the Kimbell more space so patrons could see more of the museum’s permanent collection more often.

The somewhat bitter part was that the new pavilion occupied what had been some very nice open space, a wide expanse of grass and trees, practically a park.

Now the Kimbell is building a new park — really, a parking lot that will look a lot like a park — on the 6-acre block to the east of its original 1972 Louis Kahn building.

The new space, also across from the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, will be heavily landscaped, including a water feature and shaded pedestrian paths, the Kimbell Art Foundation has announced.

It’s an $8 million project expected to be completed in 18 months.

Life in Fort Worth has a way of balancing itself.

This story was originally published May 31, 2016 at 6:24 PM with the headline "Kimbell’s parking lot a lot like a park."