The city signed off this week on the plan to put an outdoor concert and performance venue into one of the Willow Waterhole Bayou detention basins along S. Post Oak Dr., north of the intersection with S. Main St. Specifically, the project is planned  alongside the basin just north of Gasmer Rd., west across S. Post Oak from that area previously wrapped in barbed wire to reserve it as habitat for endangered Texas prairiedawn. Rebecca Elliot writes that the stage will be paid for by the California-based Levitt Foundation, which has performance spaces geared toward public concerts and events in 6 cities around the country (and more in the works). The Houston venue will have to host at least 25 public events per year, and the city will be on the hook for up to $1 million in repairs during its first 15 years of operation.
Like some of the city’s other basin-bottom park infrastructure, the structure will be designed to flood on occasion: the rendering above shows the structure largely elevated on stilts, with the basin’s smaller permanent retention pond reflecting fireworks behind it. The structure should be somewhat hurricane-resistant, too — at least  according to an information packet dating back to 2012. That packet also included a drawing of the potential placement for the stage, along with some landscaping and parking lot layout:
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A site map of the whole planned Willow Waterhole Bayou detention system shows the planned location near S. Post Oak:
- Council OKs Plans To Build SW Houston Concert Space [Houston Chronicle]
- Previously on Swamplot:Â Sharp New Barbed Wire Fencing Should Keep Troublesome Post Oak Manor Residents from Messing with That New Willow Waterhole Prairie Conservation Area;Â The Latest Tree-Clearing Scheduled for Willow Waterhole
Images: Levitt Foundation (rendering), Willow Waterhole Greenspace Conservancy (siteplans)
Awesome! This has been in the works for a long time and it’s nice to see it coming to fruition. And there won’t be noise complaints in this area either because it’s pretty far away from homes.
I’m looking at it on Google Earth and I’m not sure how their going to configure it since it’s such a weird shape because of the lake.
ZAW- There is that one apartment complex that juts out into it. I guess they’ll have to point the stage towards 90
The Roach (Ranch) apartments need to be torn down!
HMM: Apartment complexes in southwest Houston don’t count. There are so many of them and nobody seems to care what happens there anyway. I drove myself nearly mad as a Super Neighborhood President, trying to get landlords to start keeping them up for the sake of tenants and neighbors.
Whiles its nice they are building something and I hope it brings investment….its pretty friggin ghetto around there. I might avoid it until I’m sure stray bullets don’t come through the middle of a show
Stray bullets is a bit melodramatic. The neighborhoods immediately adjacent to the waterhole and bounded by US-90 are $200k+; hardly a ‘friggin ghetto’.
You people are so pretentious, this area is not ghetto at all! Y’all have it confused with south park or Aldine Mail route, I have been living in the Westbury area for 20 years and it’s been safe to me!