In collaboration with Quinta Mazatlan staff and stakeholders, the McAllen community, and a multi-disciplinary design team, TELA developed a 20-year master plan for the urban bird sanctuary Quinta Mazatlan. The project aims to create a destination that serves as a gateway to the world birding network through the construction of a Center for Urban Ecology, Children’s Learning Center, display gardens, expanded habitat, and outdoor learning environments. The master plan builds on the principles of “action ecology” in which Quinta Mazatlan leads by example, demonstrating low-impact strategies, protecting and creating native habitat, and encouraging the larger community to consider sustainable design and greening strategies in local development.

The master plan includes the acquisition of 6 acres of land to the west of the existing 20-acre property, and will preserve existing vegetation while relocating the main site entry. Visitors will arrive through a permeable parking garden, then pass through a “magic” green tunnel into the site to the new PALM House and Center for Urban Ecology. Gardens around the new visitor center highlight the four physiographic zones of the Lower Rio Grande Valley: Desert, Grassland Prairie, Subtropical, and Wetland. A series of multi-sensory outdoor rooms will provide places for nature play, exploration, education, and repose, while also separating these active zones from the passive birding zone in the site’s existing Tamaulipan Thornforest.

Water - a precious resource in the Rio Grande Valley - ties together the historic, agricultural, and ecological threads of the region. The master plan calls for repair of an irrigation canal on site, the enhancement of existing water bodies, the creation of a new wetland, and the development of surface drainage swales and gardens to both educate visitors about on-site hydrology and produce greater biodiversity of plant and insect species to attract a broader bird population.