The Texas Newsroom | By Lauren McGaughy
PublishedApril 7, 2025 at 4:00 AM CDT
When Elon Musk pitched Austin on Tesla, he promised his massive car factory would be accompanied by an equally huge investment in the local environment.
Now, five years later, plans appear to be taking shape.
According to a report The Texas Newsroom obtained through a public records request, Tesla’s “riverfront eco-park” will include hike and bike trails, a waterfront and a Tesla expo and sports complex with soccer, baseball, basketball and tennis facilities. The plan, part of an annual report submitted to county economic development officials last week, estimates 20,000 households will “benefit” from the park.
The company repeatedly describes the proposed plant as an "ecological paradise."
There is no timeline laying out the project’s completion. Bloomberg first reported the new details about the park.
Tesla via Travis County Planning & Budget Office
The Tesla Gigafactory, situated inside the county but outside Austin’s city limits, opened in 2020 and serves as the company’s global headquarters. Model Y Teslas and Cybertrucks are produced there.
In the report’s “green building initiatives” section, the company states that it has built a 500,000-gallon rainwater collection system and replaced 42 acres of invasive species with native vegetation.
The proposed park will be built in stages, according to the report.
Phase One includes:
- expanding protected natural habitats and creating wildlife corridors to incorporate native species and improvise biodiversity;
- developing recreational areas by building picnic spots, sports facilities, and a waterfront amphitheater for open space to community;
- enhancing connectivity to community by constructing walking and cycling trails along the riverfront with pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly infrastructure;
- promoting educational programs to improve environmental awareness and foster community engagement through sustainability;
- engaging local community in ecological data collection and collaborating with universities and research institutions;
- and monitoring sustainability with continuous assessing of environmental performance to ensure long-term ecological benefits.
Mock-ups of the park show a footprint that would snake along the Colorado River from the Hornsby Bend Bird Observatory to Austin’s Colony. Eventually, the plan is proposed to have 25 miles of new walking trails, 18 miles of new biking trails and a 31.5-acre “outdoor workplace” for Tesla employees and a 290-acre public waterfront greenspace.
The park’s “frameworks,” according to the report, include: expand habitat and improve biodiversity, protect and restore the riverfront, transform barriers into connections, activate the riverfront with inclusive recreational space, engage local communities and monitor, measure and showcase sustainability performances.
Tesla via the Travis County Planning & Budget Office
While the report highlights the company’s effort to build one of the “most sustainable and productive clean energy manufacturing facilities in the world,” the factory has also been hit with fines for environmental and safety violations.
Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported the Gigafactory had dumped toxic pollutants into the environment for months.
The report acknowledged there were more than 1,100 reported injuries and one death in 2024. Victor Joe Gomez Sr., an electrician, died at the Tesla manufacturing plant on Aug. 1. Tesla was recently fined nearly $50,000 for safety violations after he died.
The company’s investment in the gigafactory tops $5 billion, according to the report. In 2024, the company created more jobs across every category than planned, it reported, with 21,191 people working for the company and about half of them living in the county.
