A 13-and-a-half-acre park-like lot on Memorial Dr. just north of the Ethan’s Glen condo complex and across the street from the Lantern Lane Shopping Center where Fresh Market took over a former Rice Epicurean market is the planned site of a new mixed-use development. A joint venture between the property’s longtime owner, Methodist Hospital, and the developer of nearby CityCentre is behind Memorial Green, which is meant to include apartments, offices, and restaurant and retail space, as well as single-family homes. “The project will center around an urban green space, which connects the uses in a pedestrian environment,” reads a description of the project in the annual report of Midway Companies.
“Local dog owners will be devastated,” notes a Swamplot reader. The lot has long been used as an informal dog park. Surveyors have been seen at work on the property, which is sprinkled with tall pines.
A couple of blocky renderings (above and below) of early concepts for Memorial Green, planned for Methodist’s lots and 12505 and 12601 Memorial Dr., were also included in Midway’s annual report.
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- Annual Report 2013 (PDF) [Midway Companies]
- Memorial Green [HAIF]
Renderings: Midway Companies. Photos: Swamplot inbox
Meh….if its not in the loop then who cares..
When I was a kid, that lot was the location of a large old folks home. It has been empty for literally decades. I’ve always found this exceedingly curious, since obviously the property has a ton of value (located in a very high income neighborhood).
Uh. With that brick patio in the front it looks like “Memorial Green” is more like “Memorial fry-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk”. It will be about 150 degrees there in the summer. And what are people supposed to do there – square dance? Why not make it a truly restful green space?
@Practically Yours: Really? “Its hot in Houston during the summer” is all you got.
Ah Methodist…the hospital system that gives nothing back to the community will just get richer!
The old Texas Baptist Haven property. I wonder if there has been much opposition from the neighborhood to this. There is a strip center across the street, but otherwise that area is pretty quiet. Not that much traffic on that part of Memorial Drive. Adding midrise buildings, offices, apartments, retail, restaurants and bars(?) will really change the character of the area.
That part of Memorial Dr. does have a “chicken lane” so left turns wont’ be terrible but will still be bad. Wonder if they’ll put a stop light there as well. Or just hire HPD every weekday at 5pm.
This will ruin the area. The amount of traffic it will add to streets that are already crowded and not designed to handle the load will be a nightmare. After seeing how Midway has handled City Centre I can expect nothing but the worst. Their attempt to cram as much junk into one small space with poor parking and poor access makes it a place that most area residents avoid as much as possible. The people it attracts seem to be from out of town or another part of Houston. I can imagine Midway will create a similar eyesore at this location. Green space? That’s a laugh. At City Centre they had a nice fenced in field on the SE corner that the residents of the apartments and town homes there could walk their dogs and and get outside where it was not all concrete. Midway has now thrown up a huge apartment monstrosity building there. No more green space. Another 100 apartments will go in that I am sure the suckers who paid $800k+ for those town homes next door are happy about. The lot that this article is about is the largest green space in the area. To put up their mess I am sure Midway will cut down every old oak tree that has been there before any of us were born. In its place they will cover it with concrete and then plant a few small trees and call it “green”. It is sad the Midway claims they are a Houston company because they don’t care much about the quality of life in this town. I would be interested to know if any Midway management live anywhere close the mess of City Centre.
The owner of Midway sits on the Memorial City TIRZ Board. Last week the Board voted to add Memorial Drive on the fast track CIP funding “priority list “, to be started on soon. The owner’s name is Brad Freel and he does live in the neighborhood, in Sandalwood. The neighborhood has used the land for a dog park and had hopes for a very large detention pond to go in on the property. Midway’s developments are ugly and lack detention and the only green we will see is money for Mr. Freel. Just more irresponsible development for greedy people. The site was Buckner Resthaven Senior Living Center adjacent to several hundred townhomes that I used to live in ( Ethan’s Glen). The townhome community can not be happy.
If only the dog owners devastation were the worst of it, Just wait until the real fun begins during construction…
I grew up at here and moved back to the neighborhood 18 years ago. Our family has been in the commercial real estate business here for years. The look of this project for the neighborhood is shocking. Surely, they can do better than that. Really.
@Donna Freedman – I am not disputing any of your comments, more curious what direction you are going with this CIP fast tracking comment on Memorial Drive. That piece of land looks to be outside of the TIRZ boundary currently on their website. Everyone in Ethan’s Glen is concerned.
http://www.houstontirz17.org/files/4013/9964/8199/CIP20Projects2011x1720New20-20Small.pdf
What are the hippies complaining about now? The developers are right on track with this design. It is absurd for anyone in this day and age to cling to the antiquated idea that commercial/retail need suffer the drains of community space, a space mind you, that has until recent reforms, served almost exclusively for the very purpose of distracting consumers from consuming. The developers are only responding to the needs of the business community, and those needs require the undivided attention of a
captive audiencepedestrian community and proximity to bus stops and low-income neighborhoods to replenish the part-time minimum-wage workforce. Anyway, why do minimum-wage workers even need green space if they are supposed to be working?Can’t let that swipe at Methodist pass. It reports $820m in charity and other community activity last year. The state requires some of this, of course, though at what level I can’t find out. And a lot of unpaid bills are counted as charity.