Back in 1974, Oak Hill Elementary School was getting ready to move out of its limestone schoolhouse on US 290. A local article published that year said, "We hope that the old building will be preserved and used in some way so that we may keep it as one of our many historical landmarks." Fifty-two years later the building has new tenants, and its front yard faces a rebuilt highway. Escuela opened at 6240 W. Hwy. 290 in September. That was the same month the Oak Hill Parkway had its opening celebration a little way down the road.
The timing works as a guide to the whole corridor. The part of the parkway built for cars is done. Crews are now finishing the part built for people who walk, bike and stop for dinner, and that is the part longtime Oak Hill households will notice most from here on.
Three finish lines in about three weeks
If it seems like the parkway has been declared finished several times this fall, that's because it has. Each announcement marked a different milestone.
| Date | Who said it | What they said |
|---|---|---|
| Sept. 9, 2026 | Community Impact, citing TxDOT | "Substantial completion," with landscaping and other pending tasks running through the end of the year |
| Sept. 24, 2026 | Fluor, the contractor's joint venture partner | Opening celebration; the roadway is "fully open to traffic," with final completion expected by year-end |
| Oct. 1, 2026 | TxDOT | Celebrated "completion" of the project |
All three are accurate. "Open to traffic" and "final completion" are separate milestones, and the corridor sits between them right now. Even the price tag depends on who's counting. Fluor and Community Impact put it at $677 million, and TxDOT's release says $679 million.
What drivers got is already in use. The old Y has been replaced by a single-point urban interchange. Direct-connect flyovers link US 290 and SH 71, and US 290 now passes over William Cannon Drive. The seven-mile stretch that used to be a four-lane undivided road is now a six-lane divided highway with new frontage roads.
What the barrels are still guarding
TxDOT's own construction page sums up this stage in two sentences:
"The barrels will remain for now— neighbors can expect ongoing painting, landscaping, asphalt paving, striping, and shared-use path improvements. Lane closures may be needed at times to complete these activities."
Every item on that list is finish work around the road, and none of it changes the lane count. That explains why the closures still showing up on the project's alerts page mostly happen at night, and why the page still opens with "Construction is ongoing."
The last week of October gives a good sense of the pattern:
- Overnight closures from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., Oct. 26–29, at the eastbound US 290 exit to William Cannon Drive, the westbound exit to RM 1826, and the eastbound entrances at El Rey Boulevard and RM 1826
- The US 290 U-turns at William Cannon Drive closed in both directions on those same nights
- Left-lane closures on US 290 between MoPac and Patton Ranch Road, between McCarty Lane and Monterey Oaks Boulevard, and between RM 1826 and SH 71, scheduled "through late October"
- Daytime closures from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Oct. 26–27, at the SH 71 U-turns serving Oak Hill Plaza and Center of the Hills
TxDOT posts new closures as the work moves along, and it says every closure is subject to change and depends on the weather. The alerts page and DriveTexas are the places to check a specific night. The overall pattern is more useful for planning. Expect occasional evening detours around William Cannon and the RM 1826 ramps until final completion, which Fluor puts at the end of the year.
The walking half comes last
The scale of the unfinished work is easy to underestimate. TxDOT describes 14 miles of shared-use paths and 1.5 miles of sidewalk along the corridor. That's twice the length of the seven-mile highway itself. And "shared-use path improvements" is one of the items TxDOT still lists as ongoing.
The new design also changed how the side streets cross the highway. US 290 was lowered, and Convict Hill Road, RM 1826, Scenic Brook Drive and Circle Drive/South View Road now cross over it at grade at new intersections. Community Impact reported in July that the Scenic Brook Drive crossing at SH 71 had recently opened. For anyone in Western Oaks, Legend Oaks or Travis Country, those crossings are the everyday connections across a road that used to split Oak Hill in two.
The city expects these paths to become more than highway shoulders. Austin's Urban Trails Plan puts Oak Hill Parkway inside the Barton Corridor. That's a partially complete planned route from the Y at Oak Hill to Barton Creek, and the plan groups it with the MoPac Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridge, the Stratford-to-Barton Springs Connector and the YBC Trail. Under that plan, the parkway paths are the western end of a route the city hopes will reach the creek.
Until the new paths are signed and finished, the Violet Crown Trail is still the established way to walk this part of town. Its 290 Trailhead is at 4934 W. US Hwy. 290 Service Road in Sunset Valley. From there the route follows Brodie Lane and Home Depot Boulevard into the Williamson Creek West Greenbelt, runs along the MoPac access-road sidewalk to William Cannon, then passes under MoPac toward Arbor Trails and the Whirlpool Trailhead near Convict Hill Road and Latta Drive. The Violet Crown Trail is a separate trail with its own route, not part of the parkway project. It does run through the same neighborhoods the new paths are meant to serve.
The businesses at the Y worked through five years of construction
Few people felt each phase of construction as closely as the shops that stayed open in the middle of it. In June, KXAN spoke with Karly and Jim English, who own Once Upon A Child Southwest Austin, a children's resale store that opened at the Y shortly after construction began. "Every time the traffic hits a milestone and things improve a little bit, traffic patterns get a little bit better, we grow," they told KXAN.
That same KXAN report said construction had cut off the road linking the two sides of the Oak Hill Plaza shopping center across SH 71. The station also reported that new U-turns serving the shopping center at SH 71 and US 290 had opened that week. Those U-turns are the same ones on TxDOT's daytime closure list for late October. They're a reminder that the shopping center's access is still part of the finishing work.
Dinner at the old schoolhouse
Escuela shows what the corridor can look like once the barrels are gone. The restaurant comes from the team behind Cabo Bob's, according to The Infatuation's October roundup of Austin openings. It sits on more than five acres and grows its own produce on the property.
Escuela's property history fills in the building's story. Oak Hill Elementary was the community's first formal schoolhouse when it opened in 1923. Before that, local classes met in a log cabin dating to the late 1800s. James Andrew Patton donated the land and served on the Board of School Trustees for about 40 years. His house, next to the school, still stands on the property. The original three-room limestone building got additions in 1933 and 1954, and the three kinds of limestone from those three phases are still visible in the walls.
There are two concepts planned for the site:
- Fino is open now. It's the refined, seasonal Tex-Mex dining room inside the restored schoolhouse and on its covered patio, with dishes built around produce from the farm. Hours are 5 to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and it's closed Sunday and Monday.
- Campo is described as a relaxed, family-friendly Tex-Mex barbecue spot with garden dining and walk-in service. As of late October, Escuela's site still lists it as "coming soon," with no opening date.
The parkway's opening celebration and Escuela's debut came within weeks of each other. Meanwhile, the remaining construction crews are working on paths, sidewalks and landscaping, the parts of a road that make it easier to stop along it. When final completion arrives near the end of the year, Oak Hill will still have a seven-mile highway, plus 14 miles of paths, new crossings at Scenic Brook and Convict Hill, and a 1923 schoolhouse serving dinner on Tuesday nights.
At Dru Brown, we've followed Oak Hill through every phase of this project, and the finished corridor changes how homes along US 290 and SH 71 connect to the rest of Southwest Austin. If you're wondering how the new access, crossings and paths might affect your home's value, we'd be glad to put together a personalized home valuation with those changes factored in.
