The Office of James Burnett has posted more detailed renderings of the newly expanded Levy Park just north of the Southwest Fwy. at Eastside St. as it’s supposed to look when work is complete sometime after next fall. Included in the $10 million plans for the 5.9-acre space are a performance pavilion, 2 big lawns, a dog park, and a food kiosk. A winding “children’s garden” will have tree houses and fountains around the middle-aged live oak trees relocated to the center of the park. There’ll be restrooms and room for farmers’ markets as well.
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The concrete frame of Midway’s 16-story, 250K-sq.-ft. One Grove Street office building in the Kirby Grove development is already rising at the corner of Richmond and Wakeforest, at the northeast corner of the park. 25,000 sq. ft. of restaurant space on that building’s ground floor will face Levy Park to the south. A loft-style midrise apartment building called Avenue Grove (but labeled “Kirby Grove Residential” on the older site plan above) will be built at the southeast corner of the park. It’ll have 270 apartments.
Construction of the Upper Kirby District park project is expected to begin late next month.
- Levy Park [Office of James Burnett]
- Construction to start soon at Levy Park [Houston Chronicle]
- Previously on Swamplot: A Look at Midway’s Mixed-Use Plans in Upper Kirby?; The Beginnings of a Mixed-Use District on Richmond?, The New Levy Office Park
Renderings: Office of James Burnett. Site plan: Midway Companies
The land swap to make the park east/west oriented is a good idea. 59 is a bit overwhelming down where the dog park is currently located.
Very cool. I will definitely use this park. Excellent allocation of resources.
This along with the new centennial gardens and all the other stuff going around the city, it feels amazing to live in a city that takes pride in its green spaces. Truly great stuff.
Any idea if there’s still enough open space for things like kickball? One of my friends used to play in a league over there.
John, looking at the drawings my guess is no. All the adult children will have to find somewhere else to play kickball in the middle of the night. I hope they don’t migrate to the park near me.
It is a shame that the city is losing a softball field. The city should have figured out how to keep it there.
Nice! It reminds me of Discovery Green and I like that it’s a hidden from the streets and freeway. This gives me hope that (some) Houston developers are finally seeing the need for usable green space in our ever more crowded city!
As a current user of Levy Park it’s sad to see some of the changes. Wish they weren’t putting another apartment complex in the back corner where the old dog park was because it’s going to make traffic a nightmare in that back corner with the camden garage coming out of that corner. We don’t need more apartments we need the green space.
Wow, little Levy Park is growing up! I remember how exciting it was when we got one of the first community gardens in town there (grew the biggest basil of my life in my little plot there). It’s hard to believe such growth in greenspace in that area.
As a former area resident and vistor of the park, these changes are really disappointing. In all honesty, another high-end apartment complex within the Greenway/Upper Kirby district is just another example of overdevelopment; a number of the apartments currently being constructed or recently completed have been hard pressed to fill their units. Namely b/c of absurd increases in rental rates. But I digress, back to Levy Park. As Levy Park was currently utilized, it accomondated many different activities (gardening, softball, kickball, children’s play area, dog park, etc.) without the focus of tying it to commercial use or copying Discovery Green. It was a park, plain and simple. Discovery Green is great and serves it purpose for the location it occupies. But, the Upper Kirby District is really erring in the concept and design of this new park (not to mention that as a public board with taxing powers has not been posting their minutes or meeting agendas online). With traffic in the Greenway/59 area already a nightmare, why subject park goers to increased traffic and density? More importantly, Levy park just underwent a $10MM rennovation in the past ten years. Why all of a sudden the desire to radically use taxpayer dollars to redesign and renovate so soon?
I played kickball at that park for years. It’s sad that the city is taking away another simple park with a ballfield in favor of the over developed programmed style parks.
Those places are enormously expensive to maintain and will fall into disrepair as soon as another budget shortfall pops up.
A ballfield is simple and easy to maintain and provides great use for any number of things. Stude, Memorial, and Cleveland park are all us rec sporters have left, though it’s almost impossible to get a league spot for Memorial or Cleveland Park.