Parks

Land Sales
03/26/08 5:50pm

UH Southeastern Expansion: More Rail Frontage

by
Parks, Riverside Terrace
2 Comments

Rendering of Proposed Southeast Metrorail Line on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Between Griggs Rd. and Old Spanish Trail

Just a few blocks north of the site of the new Houston Texans YMCA, the University of Houston has bought 43 acres immediately southeast of its main campus.

The new UH land looks like it’s part of MacGregor Park, but whether it is — or was — was a matter of intense . . . legal interest. The property was originally part of a larger 110-acre parcel that was donated by the MacGregor family to the City of Houston in 1930. More recently, the donors’ heirs sued the city for violating the terms of that gift, which required that the city turn the land into a park. By 2002, the MacGregor heirs had won back rights to the wooded 41 acres between MLK and Spur 5, on the north side of Old Spanish Trail.

The MacGregor heirs’ sale of the property to UH for $25 million closed in February, according to a report by Jennifer Dawson in the Houston Business Journal. The new UH property is south of the gigantic Wellness Center, across Buffalo Brays Bayou.

The land gives UH a possible new entrance on Martin Luther King Blvd., but it’s also likely to give the campus a fifth light-rail station: a MacGregor Park stop will be the second station on the Southeast line, which begins at the new transit center planned for Palm Center.

Rendering of planned Southeast light-rail line on MLK, south of UH: Metro

, , , , ,
Attractions
03/10/08 9:28am

New Hermann Park Train Does Not Kick Ass, Apparently

by
Hermann Park, Parks, Transportation
3 Comments

New Hermann Park Train

The Hermann Park kiddie trains are running again! But blogger Lou Minatti considers the replacement C.P. Huntington too “plasticy”:

A news photographer was there and we chatted for a bit. According to his sources, the old train was replaced due to three reasons: The old 50’s-era train had no dead man’s switch, it wasn’t wheelchair-accessible, and our collective asses are bigger than they were in the 1950s. Hence the need for the much wider train.

Photo: Lou Minatti

, , , , , ,
Art
03/03/08 10:02am

Ex-Presidents in Pearland: Heads Above the Muck

by
Mixed Use, Parks, Pearland, Proposed Developments, Public Art
No Comments

President Heads above Mud at Presidential Park and Gardens, Waterlights District, Pearland, Texas

A reader sent in a larger version of the above photo to the Brazosport News. It shows the first giant presidential heads in place at Pearland’s new Presidential Park. Eventually, the remaining 37-member contingent of very-white sculpted U.S. presidents will join them, and the surrounding swampland will be transformed into a lovely green space, separated from a new shopping, retail, office, and hotel development by . . . a watergate! For now, though, the scene sure does look like only a few presidential giants have managed to keep their heads out of the mud.

The winners of an online vote to select which five of sculptor David Adickes‘s giant busts should be the first to move to the park were Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Kennedy — even though more recent Oval Office residents had far better ballot position. But democracy has its limits: Richard Browne, developer of the adjacent Waterlights District, decided to include the statue of former president George H.W. Bush in the first group anyway. All six made their head-turning trip down 288 from Adickes’s First Ward studio on Presidents’ Day.

Missed your chance to participate in the online presidential headcount? A separate ballot asks you to select which chain restaurants you want to appear in the Waterlights District, though its unclear if polling has already been closed.

Read on for a sketch of the Waterlights District, and another view of ex-presidents keeping their noses clean. Plus: a dated image of President John F. Kennedy, cut out of our version of the photo above . . . because he was too far to the right.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

, , , , , , , ,
Parks
11/16/07 11:20am

When Trees Fell in The Woodlands, and It Got Too Loud To Hear

by
Public Art, The Woodlands
No Comments

Former Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion director David Gottlieb, speaking at the Town Green Park dedication of the latest bronze likeness honoring The Woodlands founder George Mitchell, presents a better suggestion for what the statue could have looked like:

. . . [We were] observing a crowd at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion during a performance of that incredible classical music group, Poison. Mr. Mitchell was standing next to me, and he studied the many [characters] and said, “For this we cut down trees and added more capacity?

Now here is my vision of that statue: He’s standing, he’s got his fingers in his ears and he’s looking up to the heavens.

Maybe for the next one? Anyway, sure looks like the one they put up is popular enough!

, , ,
Chinatown
10/30/07 2:51pm

Park 8: The Land of Oz Comes to Houston

by
Commercial Real Estate, Condos, Highrises, Medical Buildings, Mixed Use, Parks, Proposed Developments, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers
No Comments

CEO David Wu told the Houston Business Journal last year, “It’s the sort of thing you’d see in Taiwan or Hong Kong, but we’re putting it here in the U.S.”

That’s a good description of Park 8: The Land of Oz. Here’s another one, from the project website:

The Park8 is carefully designed over and over again, improving to its perfect design today. More important, it nicely put urban life and nature together with equal force. With it’s high quality exterior finish, and it’s splendidly designed floor plans, the Land of Oz emphasis on unrestrained openness and convenience. Every penny is well worth for its consideration on security and safety issues, recreational areas, leisure activity clubhouses and beautiful landscaping design.

Wow.

How about a third try: three 26-story condo towers and a couple of parking garages on 17 acres next to Beltway 8, south of Bellaire Blvd., bounded by Arthur Storey Park on one side and parking lots for two two-story retail strips on the other. Also part of the project, but not shown on the plans: a new Chinatown General Hospital.

The first phase is under construction. And condos are for sale! All come with good Feng Shui and karaoke, courtesy of the 3CmyBox included in every unit. If you like the project video above, you’re going to love the development’s website, which includes a “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” soundtrack and prominently features six videos for the feature-packed 3CmyBox in the Photo Gallery section.

The project’s tagline:

A union of Western an Chinese Culture. A combination of fantasy and reality.

After the jump, off to see the Wizard!

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

, , , , , , , , , , , ,
Air Quality
09/24/07 10:11am

The Smoggiest Place in Houston

by
Bellaire, Hilllcroft, Parks
No Comments

Picnic Area at Bayland Park, near Bissonnet and Hillcroft

Looking for a home in an in-town location, but don’t want to miss that exhilarating feeling you get from East Side neighborhoods near the Ship Channel?

Why not start your search near Bayland Park, at the corner of Bissonnet and Hillcroft, just west of Bellaire? It’s outside the Loop, far to the west of Houston’s industrial areas, close to some of some of the city’s most dynamic neighborhoods . . . and recently was rated one of the most consistently smoggy places in Houston.

That’s right: Smog is worse on the West Side.

The data may surprise many Houstonians who associate smog with the chemical refining and industrial byproducts that foul the air in East Harris County.

In fact, the highest ozone readings in the city are routinely captured by monitors located on Houston’s densely populated southwest side. Recent data shows Bayland Park, just west of Bellaire, to be one of Houston’s smoggiest neighborhoods. According to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Bayland Park monitor, located in the 6400 block of Bissonnet Street, recorded 45 days in the last three years when ozone levels violated public health standards.

During that period, the monitor registered ozone concentrations as high as or greater than those recorded by monitors in the Ship Channel region.

Howzat happen?

University of Texas chemical engineer David Allen analyzed data collected by the Bayland Park monitor in 2006. He and others determined that climate patterns explained the high ozone concentrations on Houston’s west side. Based on computerized modeling of weather patterns, Allen said nearly every incident of excessive ozone levels in Bayland Park that year happened on days characterized by the same weather pattern: hot and sunny, with still air in the morning and light winds from the east blowing in the afternoon.

“The east winds pick up Ship Channel air and carry it all the way into west Houston where it settles over neighborhoods,” Allen said.

That’s the smell of money.

Photo: Harris County Precinct 3

, , , , ,
Houston Data
07/25/07 10:29pm

Do Traffic Medians Count as Parkland? How About Demolition Sites?

by
Parks
No Comments

Lake Houston Dock

The Trust for Public Land’s annual report on parks in cities is out and—guess what! Houston miraculously has a whole lot more parkland than it did last year.

In 2006, the Trust’s report showed Houston had 16.5 acres of parkland for every 1,000 residents—below the 20.6-acres-per-1,000 average for cities of similar density.

This year, Houston looks a whole lot better: Suddenly, there’s 27.2 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents. That puts us in third place among cities in the “intermediate-low density” category, and well above the new 17.5 acre average.

How’d it happen? Was it the new 11th Street Park? A secret citywide playground-building program? Not quite. It’s the creative accounting effort launched by Mayor White’s office to make sure the Trust counted every green acre.

White simply wanted Houston judged by the same criteria as other cities, [spokesman Frank] Michel said. “As the mayor likes to say, the facts are our friends.”

Where did the mayor find all that green? Well, here’s his biggest catch:

. . . the city argued successfully that the surface area of Lake Houston — almost 12,000 acres — should be counted as parkland. Harnik said the trust agreed that bodies of water should be counted if they were associated with a park owned by a government agency. Houston acquired the 5,000-acre Lake Houston Park in August 2006 from the state parks department.

Too bad we were limited to just the surface area, though. Next year’s report will probably be even better. Isn’t there a city park somewhere associated with the Ship Channel too?

Lake Houston Photo: Flickr user Demonhawk.

, ,
Downtown
06/20/07 12:01pm

Downtown Skatepark: Build It and Maybe They Will Go Away

by
New Construction, Old Sixth Ward, Parks
No Comments

Downtown Houston Skatepark

“If your city doesn’t have a skatepark, then your city is a skatepark,” reads a headline on a Skaters for Public Skateparks website. And really: Houston has so many better uses for its concrete surfaces—like channeling floodwaters.

In the words of one proponent, speaking in a Public Use Skateparks for Houston (PUSH) video:

If you want to get the kids off the streets, get them to quit tearing up your ledges and your rails, and put them some place where they can actually have some fun and stay out of trouble, a place where families can come hang out — there’s a real need for it in a city this big.

It’s the flypaper theory of city planning: Build it, and maybe those annoying skaters will go there and leave your property alone.

You might have expected building owners bothered by scrapes and skate wax to have been bigger proponents of the newly announced downtown Skatepark. Instead, it took a $1.5 million donation from Joe Jamail for the Houston Parks Board to meet its fundraising goals.

The park will be 35,000 square feet of sculpted concrete on the west side of Sabine St. at Memorial Dr., just under the Sabine Bridge over Buffalo Bayou. There better be some drains in those bowls.

PUSH spokesman Barry Blumenthal told city council to expect 200 skaters and hundreds of onlookers at the park on a typical Saturday.

After the jump, more views of the new skatepark.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

, , ,
Parks
06/11/07 10:10am

West 11th Street Park: Saved by the Bill

by
Timbergrove
No Comments

West 11th Street ParkFor a while, it looked like the effort to save the last five acres of the West 11th Street Park property from impending townhome development was going to fail. Having put up those acres of parkland as collateral for a bridge loan from Amegy Bank that allowed the city to purchase the remaining fifteen acres of the park, the Houston Parks Board had given park supporters only until August to raise $3.75 million to pay off the loan.

Private donors reaching into their own pockets were able to raise only about a quarter of a million dollars. Meanwhile, one donor was looking in other pockets: In the last legislative session, State Senator John Whitmire was able to slide funding for the park into the state budget for local parks grants. After some confusion, it now appears that Whitmire’s bill will allow the property, long a merely undeveloped HISD property with tall trees, to become an official city park.

Now what happens to the private funds already raised for that purpose?

West 11th Street Park Photo: Houston Parks Board

, ,
« Previous Page