Six years after it closed, HOPE Outdoor Gallery is set to reopen this fall near the airport

HOPE Outdoor Gallery opened in 2011 as an experiment, when Andi Scull saw an abandoned plot of land with concrete slabs as an opportunity to make art.

Scull, the founder of the graffiti park, expected the project to last a few years. But before long HOPE became one of Austin’s top tourism destinations — appearing in listicles and coming highly recommended on TripAdvisor.

“I would go there on a Saturday and 2,000 people would be there,” Scull said.

But the land on Baylor Street was prime real estate, and in 2019 it was sold to a luxury condo developer.

Since then, Scull and her partners have been working on HOPE’s new location across from the airport. The new gallery was originally supposed to open in 2021, but she said a combination of “substantial” construction issues and difficulties working through both the city and county’s permitting processes set them back. Then the pandemic hit.

Now, six years after the park closed, Scull said the new 17-acre gallery is on track to open this fall.

“We’re so close now, we’re like ‘let’s just get to the grand opening and then everyone can come experience it just like they used to,’” she said.

Aaron Darling is one artist ready to practice at HOPE again. In the early 2010s, Darling visited HOPE nearly every day after his shift as an x-ray transporter at Seton Main — some days he also went before work.

He said it felt like having his own studio with the biggest walls he could imagine.

“I’m six-foot-two. I’m 220. I’m not a small guy,” he said. “On a wall, you can paint on a massive scale. For me, it makes me feel small. I don’t get that feeling very often… It’s humbling in a way.”

Darling — now a full-time muralist — called the new location a “redemption story.”

“I’ve been out there several times and it’s just beautiful every time,” he said.

Just like the original site, the new gallery will be free and open to the public. The building and its accompanying concrete structures spell “HOPE” from a birds-eye view, an acronym for Helping Other People Everywhere.

The outside walls of the gallery are free for anyone to paint and practice their art, and the inside walls will showcase curated work that will change throughout the year. The new gallery also has a piece of the old site: one of the original slabs of concrete from Baylor Street was relocated and placed in the “H.”

The new gallery will host a creative summer camp for kids and other events like poetry slams.

Scull hopes the new location will fill a need for spaces to view and make art in Austin. Despite being the 11th largest city in the country, Austin has never had a robust museum scene.

“Dallas and Houston have historically always had a ton more museums and a higher-end art world. But once you get into those realms, it’s not the local artists,” Scull said. “I like hearing from people who have been involved in our project, who are also part of those higher-end art groups [say] that this is needed.”

Scull said the new gallery also represents something else: a testament to iconic parts of Austin surviving through the decades, even as the city changes.

“[We] really want people to feel and understand what development means in Austin,” she said. “Things change, and they take time, and there are obstacles. And it takes a lot to persevere and work through them. But it’s worth it, in a city like this.”

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