wow. water elements. amphitheatre. restaurants. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/3849812.html A lot more than a walk in the park The downtown attraction will offer a giant pond, amphitheater and two restaurants By MIKE SNYDER Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle 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 cafe on the other. The Schiller Del Grande Restaurant Group, which owns Cafe 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 the 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 the 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. mike.snyder@chron.com
Could they accidentally demolish the abortion that is the George R. Brown Convention Center? Yeah, that'd be great.
central park lite. looks cool! Is this part of that megaplex shopping complex they talked about a few months ago?
no. are you talking about the pavillions? where house of blues will be? they won't be far away...but it's not connected.
I dont like the restaurants - I would rather there be a bigger ampitheater where there could be outdoor concerts/festivals like Zilker in Austin. I just think they are maybe trying to do too much.....
Looks bad ass. Beats the hell out of what's there right now (ugly parking lot). I'd love to see more undergound parking downtown.
I for one, am glad that Schiller Del Grande will handle the food and not some trumped up white tiger semi-amusement park slash food place headed up by Fertitta with a god-awful rollercoaster or some other tacky oversized piece of carnival trash.
lol. Tell us how you really think. Not only are they building this but adjacent to the park, developers are already planning residential and commercial projects to take advantage of the new setting. Combine this with the Pavillions project and the redone park in front of Toyota, and that whole side of downtown will be completely unrecognizable by 2010. Great to see some big-picture urban planning rather than the typical unzoned free-for-all thats resulted in Houston as we know it today.
yeah, i'm really excited about that. just get the kids off to college, and i'll be moving downtown! of course, that's in about 17 years!
Naw, you'll have better luck with the places surrounding the courthouse on Lubbock. Go into the one directly adjacent to the east side of the courthouse. Ask for 'Mutt' and tell him I sent you. He'll hook you up.
I think this is totally bad ass...I like it a lot and can defititely see this as a good place to pick up chicks...uh...nevermind...
It will be wonderful, as long as the police patrol it and it does not become a huge homeless person campground/bathroom.
