Discovery Green opened a decade ago this weekend, drawing 25,000 people to the long-dormant east side of downtown to gawk at parading Clydesdales, dogs in costumes, a puppet show, a magician, musicians and dancers.

Skeptics said the 12-acre green space in front of the George R. Brown Convention Center would become a homeless encampment, that no suburbanite would drive all the way downtown to see a park, that the $125 million the city and philanthropists had jointly invested would prove to be a waste.

They were wrong.

Visitor counts immediately outstripped consultants’ projections, which leaders had worried might be too optimistic. Today, more than 1.2 million people visit the park’s 1-acre lake, its playground and interactive water feature, its restaurants, amphitheater, dog runs and public art installations, its summer putting green and winter ice rink.

Many visitors are drawn by the 600-some free activities the park hosts annually — from regular yoga, Zumba and salsa classes to film, beer and margarita festivals, 5K runs and even a contemporary circus. Others are out-of-towners meeting Houston for the first time with a stroll through the park, the organizers of the event they’re attending having seen Discovery Green as a key part of city boosters’ pitches for major conventions, Final Fours, All-Star games and Super Bowls.

Bob Eury, executive director of the Downtown Management District, said the space has succeeded by functioning as both the city’s backyard and its front door, drawing Houstonians and conventioneers alike.

“It’s really performing every bit the way the founders intended, in that it was this civic lawn that was just a great urban park that people who live in the neighborhood can use, but it’s also something that people from the entire city and region can enjoy,” Eury said. “That was the vision, and it really has achieved that.”

A family adventure

Daniel Adame remembers reading about plans for Discovery Green a decade ago, before his son Logan, 7, was born. As someone who enjoys running and hiking outdoors, the idea of another greenspace in town sounded great to the Northside resident.

His family’s grown since then, and so has his affinity for the park.

“I remember reading that they were going to build a little spot downtown here, and as soon as they made it, we’d come out here every once in a while,” he said Sunday afternoon, after enjoying a kayak ride around the park with his son, Logan.

“We’ll come when they’re having events, or just to come out on a Sunday or Saturday,” he continued. “I love just walking, having the kids run around and play outdoors.”

On Sunday, only moments after arriving at the park, Logan led his parents directly to the boardwalk on the central pond, to tuck into the front seat of a yellow ocean kayak for a 15-minute spin around.

His main goal? To get wet.

“He just loves the water,” said his mom, Jessica Balles, as she waited on dry land, snapping photos of Logan and Daniel wandering over the water’s surface. “Whenever we get here, he takes us either right here, or the water park over there.”

As Logan took control of the kayak, Daniel lazed in the back, his bare feet kicked up along the side of the kayak, his paddle docked.

This wasn’t Logan’s first time paddling around the pond, and he knew just what to do — for the most part.

Occasionally, when they found themselves heading toward the blooming masses of lily pads, Daniel would join back in on paddling. But for the most part, he left it up to Logan, who smiled broadly as a group of young singers from Theatre Under The Stars sang the ocean-exploring anthem “How Far I’ll Go” from “Moana.”

Over the course of the 15-minute adventure, Daniel’s sun-faded life jacket grew darker in a series of splashes flying off Logan’s paddle.

“He got wetter than I did,” Logan said with a laugh when they returned to dry land.

“Yeah, I think so,” his father said.

No harm, no foul on a sunny day like Sunday though.

“The weather is nice, and it’s nice to get out and kayaking here; it’s safe,” Daniel said. “Safe and fun.”

Thousands of Houstonians made their way to the park on Sunday. The result was a greenspace transformed into a vibrant patchwork of Houston’s communities and cultures, buzzing with energy.

High-schoolers in marching band uniforms jumped around for silly photos in the splash park as the Aztec-inspired Danza Aquetzalli dance troupe walked by carrying feathered headdresses and rattling their instruments. Nearby, Pasadena high schoolers paraded in a fashion show, strutting in brightly colored outfits made of paper. In the crowd, Hogg Middle School student Karla Garcia, 13, still dressed in her stage makeup from her performance with Ballet Folklorico bounced her 9-month-old nephew around to the sound of a mariachi band.

Changes ahead

Former mayor Bill White announced the park plan in fall 2004 and cheered its opening on April 13, 2008, calling the space a legacy for future generations.

Leaders of the the Brown and Kinder foundations had pitched an immediately enthusiastic White on the idea, then joined four other philanthropic groups — the Houston Endowment, Wortham Foundation, Cullen Foundation and the Fondren Foundation — to form the Houston Downtown Park Conservancy, which embarked on a fundraising campaign.

City Hall’s investment in the project included $33 million in donated land, $8 million to purchase more land, and a commitment to provide $750,000 annually for maintenance. The funds, then and now, come from hotel taxes and parking fees.

If that still sounds like a steep price, Eury said, consider the $1.3 billion net increase in property value that has followed immediately around the park, the vast majority of it private investment, including luxury apartments, hotels and office towers.

And, though a per-unit public subsidy and other factors joined the park in driving a spike in residential development downtown, many of the roughly 5,500 new residents who have moved to the area since Discovery Green opened live within a few blocks.

“I’m a native Houstonian and I’m a son of a native Houstonian, and as children we were told, ‘Never go downtown,’ that nothing good happened downtown outside of the Theater District,” said Discovery Green’s president, Barry Mandel. “So, watching children in the thousands recreate downtown on a daily basis is sometimes kind of hard to comprehend, and it is also joyful on a daily basis.”

As Discovery Green enters its second decade, Mandel said, changes are in the works. Some of that evolution is driven by adjacent developments: Houston First Corp. expanded the George R. Brown and supported the construction of a new Marriott Marquis hotel, and both have incorporated new restaurant spaces.

The restaurants have let conventioneers eat downtown after their conference meetings end, meaning more visitors spend time in the park later at night. That is driving Mandel’s team to re-examine the park’s lighting. The playground also is overrun on weekends, and consultants are studying how to make the park’s corners more inviting entrances, particularly on the east side facing the new plaza space in front of the convention center.

The Avenida de las Americas that fronts the GRB shrank from eight to two lanes as restaurant patios and plaza spaces grew; that has given convention officials and park leaders more room to collaborate on events that bring activity to both sides of the street.

Luther Villagomez, the GRB’s chief operating officer, marveled at the change. He has seen the convention center go from an island in a sea of concrete when it opened in 1987 to a “destination” surrounded by new towers.

In heavy demand

At Discovery Green, a decade of watching how the park is used has also spurred Mandel’s staff to add more women’s restrooms and renovate the changing area for kids, many of whom get drenched in the fountains.

A consistent challenge is having to replace the turf after it gets trampled in a big event. That often results in the park’s main lawn being fenced off in the hopes that the roots will set before the next stampede.

“Because the demand is so heavy, people want to continually use it, so we’re actually probably opening up the lawn quicker than most horticulturists would tell us is enough for the grass,” Mandel said. “But it’s the beauty of being loved so much by a community.”

mike.morris@chron.com

maggie.gordon@chron.com