The future of Fairfield State Park remains up in the air after Luminant/Vistra receives offer for the park site along with the adjoining lake and additional land from developer.

Just as the Texas Parks System began its 100th anniversary celebration, the party has been interrupted by an unwelcome intrusion.

Going into 2023 the park system included 89 park, historical and natural sites. That number could soon be 88 with the announcement that Fairfield Lake State Park leaseholder Luminant/Vistra had entered a contract with Todd Interests of Dallas for sale of the property.

The action does not come as any surprise. Luminant/Vistra put the park site, adjoining 2,200-acre Fairfield Lake and additional acreage on the market last year after abandoning the coal-fired plant and mining operation at the location in 2018. The original asking price was $110 million.

It was a steep price, but considering what was included not outrageous. For a state agency hamstrung by a bureaucratic process, it was out of reach when the property was first listed.

“We were told from the beginning that the seller was not willing to carve out the state park. They wanted to sell all 5,000 acres in one chunk,” explained Dr. David Yoskowitz, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Executive Director.

The park came online in 1976 on land then owned by TXU. Today it includes 130 campsites, 12 miles of hiking trails and the lone public boat ramp to the lake. Although the land came lease free from both TXU and its successor Luminant/Vistra, the state agency has invested $70 million in infrastructure and improvements through the years. Located about 15 miles off I-45 between Dallas and Houston, visitation jumped to 82,000 last year.

“There are 1,000 more Texans every day, so we need the recreation space,” Yoskowitz said.

TPWD has known the park was in a tenuous position for years. It was first informed in 2018 that the lease would be terminated in October 2020. Without the revenue it now receives from the Sporting Goods Sales Tax, the agency attempted to carve out an agreement where it could obtain the 1,800 acres of park land. Even then the owner was not interested in splitting the property.

The lease continued to be extended until last summer when Luminant/Vistra and Todd Interests went under contract, offering only a revolving 120-day agreement pending their closing of the deal.

Still the department, led by Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission chairman Arch Aplin, have been in constant talks with both Luminant/Vistra and Todd Interests in hopes of carving out a late deal to maintain the park and lake usage, or if the sale falls through to purchase all 5,000 acres.

Unlike in 2018, the department has more cash on hand thanks to the 2019 passage of the Sporting Goods Sales Tax. Even though the fund will provide $465.8 million for parks this year, Yoskowitz said carving out all $110 million for the Fairfield site would be impossible.

“It would be tough. There are other parks that exist that need to be shored up and worked on and we want to bring on new parks every couple of years. That is hard to do on just the Sporting Good Sales Tax,” Yoskowitz said.

He added the Texas Legislature has stayed supportive of saving the park and the potential for a one-time appropriation was on the table along with help from private donors and non-government organizations that have stepped up in the past to provide a bridge to department ownership.

Ownership of the entire site would give the department not only room for expansion, but the unique ownership of what would have been the largest lake within a state park. The lake has had a checkered history that has included one 13-pound-plus Toyota ShareLunker in the 1980s, but several others in the Lunker and Elite class. However, in the waning years of the adjacent power plant the lake suffered from dieoffs caused by low oxygen levels associated with excessive heat and limited inflow. Since then, however, the lake has rebounded, but since negotiations for the site stalled TPWD management of the lake has ceased.

Complete ownership would put the department in the unusual spot of dealing with water rights attached to the lake as well as costs for maintaining the dam and other upkeep.

“That is something through this process we have considered, but to own the whole piece would be a gem for the state of Texas,” Yoskowitz said.

The department was expecting to hear by Feb. 3 whether the park closing would be months away or whether it would stay and possibly expand. Yoskowitz said as of Thursday there was no word and discussions between the three parties continued.

Being forced to walk away from Fairfield and attempting to redevelop something similar in the area would be costly. Yoskowitz said that with donations and assistance from other government agencies, costs at under-construction 4,871-acre Palo Pinto Mountains State Park west of Fort Worth are expected to run about $70 million.

“How could you replace this state park. It would be hard to do. The history of it. The lake itself. It would be really, really tough to replace in that part of the state,” Yoskowitz said.

If there is a silver lining in this situation, it is that it has served as a wake-up call to the department, legislators and supporters about the need for maintaining and adding park land.

‘There is more momentum, it seems to have been built up on both the House and Senate side to protect Fairfield and think about the next 100 years out and provide more opportunity for Texans to recreate,” Yoskowitz said.