Centennial Park Sits Where the Old Courthouse — and a Failed Skyscraper — Once Stood

There's a story under Centennial Park, and it explains why downtown Midland has a green block where you'd expect a building. The old Midland County Courthouse stood here until 2015, when it came down after the county moved its business to a newer building. For a while the plan for this dirt was a skyscraper: a four-star 'Energy Tower' hotel pitched at the height of the oil boom, first as a half-billion-dollar high-rise, then a scaled-back two-tower version. When the price of oil turned, the towers never got built.

What rose instead, opening in 2020, is a four-acre public lawn at 200 West Wall Street. It's centered on a Great Lawn and a Stage Pavilion for concerts and events, with tree-lined walks around the edge. A water feature works as a splash pad for kids in the daytime and a lit fountain at night, and there's a dog park, game tables, and a concession kiosk.

If you're staying near the Bush Convention Center, this is the open-air room downtown finally got. Stand on the lawn and you're standing where the county's business was done for eighty years, and where a tower meant to crown the boom never went up.