When Houston’s new
downtown park opens in fall 2007, visitors will find a mix of amenities intended
to encourage recreation while providing the natural beauty that is a hallmark of
great parks.
Design plans unveiled
Monday show that the $81 million, 12-acre park planned near the George R. Brown
Convention Center will include an outdoor amphitheater, a large pond with an
area for operating model boats, a putting green and two restaurants.
Guy Hagstette, director
of the Houston Downtown Park Conservancy, a nonprofit group overseeing
development of the park, said the design team sought to create a natural
environment that encouraged active use.
“So often, parks are
considered so precious that the impact of human activity must be carefully
managed,” Hagstette said. “We didn’t want a park where security guards were
telling people not to walk on the grass.”
The central feature of
the park will be the Great Lawn, a large green space suitable for pickup
football games, croquet or other sports. A “destination restaurant” will be on
one side of the lawn and a casual, self-serve café on the other. The Schiller
Del Grande Restaurant Group, which owns Café Annie, will operate both
restaurants.
The park will feature
several water elements, including the pond, an interactive fountain and a “mist
tree,” designed by an artist, where children can play and joggers can cool off.
Much of the land
acquired for the park now contains surface parking lots, which will be replaced
by an underground parking facility that will serve the park and the convention
center. Parking fees will defray the costs of building an underground garage.
Hagstette said the
design team, led by the San Francisco-based firm Hargreaves Associates, paid
careful attention to comments and requests at two public meetings last year.
One feature included at
the public’s request, he said, was an outdoor deck on the second floor of the
formal restaurant with an expansive view of the surrounding live oak trees.
More than a year before
the park opens, developers are acquiring land for new development on its
fringes. Mayor Bill White says the park will encourage new residential and
retail development that could trigger a renaissance of downtown’s east side.
Last year, a Colorado
developer purchased a block of land to build a high-rise residential tower just
north of the park site. The company, LandCo, said it would wait until 2008 to
start construction to give the downtown residential market more time to
strengthen. In February, Houston apartment developer Marvy Finger purchased a
1.4-acre site near the park for another project. The details are expected to be
announced soon.
The city of Houston
donated land valued at $41 million for the park. The balance of funds are being
raised from private sources by the Park Conservancy, which will administer the
park.
A public contest to name
the park is planned for August, Hagstette said.
