TEN YEARS TO CLARITY

For nearly 13 years at Houston Tomorrow, we’ve been researching, analyzing, writing about, discussing, and using transit service, trying to get a handle on what works and what doesn’t. One of the things you learn early is that Houston wasn’t designed around cars, but around a massive streetcar system, long before people had cars. The neighborhoods built around the streetcar stations were walkable and compact. We call this long period that lasted until about 1940 Houston 1.0

Houston 2.0 began with the advent of cars and the Interstate Highway System, with public money and policies aimed at moving people out to the edges of the region and redesigning their lives and environment around the idea of driving everywhere.

In April 2010, we held a transit framework retreat at Sky Farm, my family’s place in northwest Austin County. During an intense day around a long table, we looked at maps, photos, presentations, charts, and graphs, and filled long rolls of newsprint, pinned to the walls, with sketches and words. A framework of principles and goals emerged that first day, as well as the beginnings of a conceptual approach to regional transit service. Fundamentally, we agreed, it’s all about access and equity and efficiency, about connecting people to jobs, goods, services, fun, food, and all the rest.

The most basic principle was that transit service should first be available where the people are right now. That is, in the places where sufficient numbers of people are gathered every day for some reason, whether they live there, work there, are visiting there, or all of those things. We agreed that the lowest hanging fruit is to connect the biggest such place to the closest other big place.

Metro’s light rail strategy is to connect big activity centers and our group was in full agreement with it. But what happens beyond five years? We believe the creation of a transit-connected urban zone is coming, and that the beginning of Houston 3.0 is just around the corner. How far into the region that zone extends is a matter of public policy – and lots of nerve. That’s what this issue is about.

Almost from the beginning, Houston was transit oriented and a prime example of excellent design for walkable urbanism. The original Houston plan, by Gail Borden, was keyed on a grid structure with block sizes conducive to walking. The buildings were developed in an urban fashion, close together, often sharing walls, with windows and doors in the front.

New suburbs like the Heights and Montrose and Bellaire were made possible by developers who put in streetcar lines to enable people to get to work and to shop and find entertainment and all the other things cities can provide.

Those first neighborhoods were highly walkable, and stores and services were organized around the streetcar stations because the people riding the streetcars were pedestrians at both ends of their trips.

Today, those neighborhoods are still pretty walkable and convenient. In fact, looking at the map of the region at walkscore.com we see that those areas are still walkers’ paradises relative to most of the rest of the region. And at the Center for Neighborhood Technologies, a map of vehicle miles traveled in our region shows that people in the households in those old neighborhoods drive far less than people in other parts of the region – and spend far less on transportation – even though the transit system that made them possible is gone.

Houston 2.0 began with the destruction of the streetcar system and the advent of new roads and then enormous highways that enabled and encouraged sub-urban development far from the city center. Ten years ago, that paradigm was almost 100% dominant. Today, as the region creeps toward Houston 3.0 – another transit age of walkable urbanism and complete streets – that paradigm based on cars remains dominant. But not quite so much as before, and change is clearly coming.

The region’s basic transit service is provided by local buses operating in mixed traffic on city streets. Service levels vary dramatically. Some routes operate hourly, while others, like Westheimer and Harrisburg, run every 10-15 minutes, frequently enough that riders don’t need to consult a schedule. [Note: only the most frequent local bus service is shown in the maps in this illustration. The local system is complex and hard to read at this scale. Nevertheless, it serves the greatest number of people and is crucial to the system.]

The biggest limit to local service is METRO’s boundaries: outside those, the only local service is provided by Harris County in Pasadena and Baytown, and Island Transit in Galveston.

The 7.5-mile Main Street light rail line acts as the spine of the transit system, connecting the major employment centers of Downtown and the Medical Center. Houston’s single line carries more people per mile than any other light rail system except Boston’s. At rush hour, trains are crowded both ways into Downtown and the TMC; museums, parks, conventions, games, and universities along the line draw riders mid-day, evenings, and weekends. This short line serves a lot of destinations: nearly half of light rail riders make their entire transit trip on the train; the rest transfer from buses.

On routes where light rail isn’t planned, “Signature Bus” service – branded as Quickline or Swiftline – is being implemented as express service. It serves the same routes as local service, but stops less frequently to reduce trip times.

Suburban areas are linked to jobs in the urban core by a comprehensive system of park & ride buses. The service runs every 5 to 10 minutes at peak hours, using flyovers from the park & ride lots to enter barrier-separated HOV lanes, then running non-stop to Downtown. As Metro board member Christof Spieler has noted, the park & ride transit system would rank among the top ten commuter rail systems in the country if it used rail instead of buses. He has also said “The current service is more frequent, more convenient, and faster than most commuter rail systems, and equally reliable.” Metro isn’t the only provider of such service: TREK and Woodlands Express buses cover some parts of the region not in the Metro service area.

There are major gaps in the service. Trips to Downtown tend to be easy; trips to other job centers – Greenway, Uptown, Westchase, Energy Corridor – are often longer with more transfers. Many suburban areas have no local bus service at all; as the population ages and suburbs get more diverse that’s becoming a greater problem. The success of the park-and-ride system and the light rail line proves that Houstonians will ride high quality transit when it is offered, but it isn’t offered everywhere.

The numbers in map above show the market share of transit for commuters arriving in six of the major activity centers. In the Central Business District, with the most transit service, 37% of commuters arrive via transit, followed by the Medical Center at 32%. Other centers have much less service and much smaller market share. Uptown and Greenway Plaza should see upticks as new service begins. Red dots indicate density.

The next round of light rail development that is evolving will be five more lines, adding 32 miles of rail. Within the next five or six years, this intense system will have 65 stations with more than 150,000 boardings a day, likely surpassing all modern US light rail systems (possibly excepting Los Angeles, which in the first quarter of 2011 averaged 154,000 per day).

What distinguishes the Houston light rail system from most other modern light rail systems is that it has no suburban commuter component. That service is provided by a growing network of park & ride alignments. Instead, the Houston strategy is focused on connecting large activity centers where tens of thousands – and even hundreds of thousands – of people either live or work or both.

The strategy also recognizes that more than 80% of trips every day are not about commuting to or from work, but basically running errands. Thus the trains have passengers all day, not just in the morning and afternoon peak hours.

This system will contain 40 miles of rail while the Dallas system has 72 miles. But Houston’s ridership will be about double that of Dallas, at about half the cost.

For years, most of the transit activity in the region has been focused on downtown. This system will expand that focus to other centers, but will add more service to downtown, which will remain the top transit destination.

The most exciting prospect will be that of the growth of small destinations,neighborhoods with interesting restaurants or shops or other amenities, including parks. People who ride transit discover these places because they are not distracted by driving and actually are able to see what’s there.

The emergence of popular places could drive economic development in a large number of neighborhoods. Additionally, some attractive neighborhoods that aren’t necessarily well known now will begin to grow as people seek to live there and developers try to meet that demand.

Generally, a kind of development that Houston hasn’t seen much of for a century will occur: transit-oriented development (TOD). In TODs, shops and other amenities are clustered around transit stations because many people accessing them will be on foot and will want the convenience of complete neighborhoods (and a cup of coffee). While there has been some TOD along the Main Street line, the explosion of it is still in the future. And some argue that downtown wouldn’t have grown so much without the commuter bus system.

With 65 station areas encompassing some 30 square miles of TOD possibility, Houston may soon have the largest real estate market in the nation for walkable urbanism based on transit.

It’s difficult to grasp the significance of so many different neighborhoods almost suddenly being linked together by light rail transit service.

First, many of these neighborhoods are diverse, low-income areas where car ownership is low, often slightly below one car per household on average.

These new, inexpensive links to jobs, health care, schools, and other amenities should allow significant improvements in hundreds of thousands of lives. Also, small businesses in these neighborhoods will be accessible to a new group of potential customers and clients.

Secondly, people who want to live in urban circumstances – which in Harris County is more than 41% – are a huge market of 1.7 million people who are really not currently served by the market. There are public policy reasons for that; urban form is essentially illegal everywhere in the City except in the Central Business District. The City’s Urban Corridors ordinance begins to address that by setting up an optional development code for the light rail corridors.

The City is forecast to grow by about 30% by 2035, so if each of these 65 neighborhoods grew by just that much right around the stations, all would improve the prospects for neighborhood amenities such as shops and services, which could also mean more local jobs.

But the opportunities for much more significant growth, particularly in some of the larger, more urban places, could mean that these 65 station areas could accommodate half or more of all of the City’s growth, without needing to pave and develop greenspace and farmland.

This is the Houston region’s near-term opportunity to develop a true “urban zone” in which many different places are connected by good transit service. This will begin to moderate the cost of such places by increasing the supply in response to clear market demand, enabling many of the people seeking walkable urbanism to find it.

Can neighborhoods work with the City to develop a vision and plan for their own futures?

Houston is known as a sprawling metropolitan region where everybody drives. Many people take this to mean that transit service is impossible, since cost-efficient transit loves density.

But masses of people are more clustered than many realize, and jobs are very clustered. The maps here reveal the possibility of an efficient regional system that uses publicly owned right of way to provide potential service to about 3.5 million people.

The map above, by Houston Tomorrow, shows the top 25 job centers in the region, determined by H-GAC in 2006 using 2005 data. This map, also by Houston Tomorrow, shows that all but one of those centers is in Harris County.

The small map at upper right shows, in beige, the service area for Metro, the largest transit agency. In this map, all but two of the top job centers are in the Metro service area.

But the interesting data in the larger map is in the green areas, which are 5-mile-radius circles around the job centers. The green area contains nearly 60% of all the people in the region and 75% of all the jobs. The light lavender color is a ten- mile radius, and that plus the green area contains nearly 80% of all residents and 86% of all jobs.

Connecting these centers with high-quality frequent transit service is the low-hanging fruit and should be the top priority for regional transit planning.

Looked at in this way, the best continuing strategy is pretty obvious: keep connecting the biggest centers, which also moves the edges of the transit system out to meet many more potential riders, who then would have access to hundreds of thousands of jobs, not to mention restaurants, shopping, sports, culture, recreation, entertainment, education, and the other things that density provides.

Above, the top 25 job centers are shown connected by transit lanes in the major arterials, primarily Interstate Highways, but including State Highways 6/FM 1960, 290, 59, and 288, all controlled by TxDOT. In the larger version. the background grid is activity intensity, which combines population and job density. This system is very efficient in going to the places where the people are. The inset map at top right shows that this system links all the job/population circles explained previously. Links from this system to places outside the centers is easy.

This concept breaks some new ground by proposing significant amounts of “arterial bus rapid transit,” which Houston Tomorrow has advocated for many years.

Three important concepts come into play for arterial bus rapid transit (BRT). First, the region is highly polycentric. The centers are the generators of the highest-paying jobs, and for the most part they arose from the freeway intersections created by the Interstate Highway System.

Second, it is less complex, cumbersome, controversial, and costly to deploy buses on rubber tires than to install miles of rail for trains.

Third, the public already owns the right of way, a major expense in transportation projects.

The regional arterials are how we get from home to work to play to school to culture and all the rest. Increasing the capacity of each of the freeways to connect the centers with high-quality rapid bus service that operates like light rail is the quickest, most flexible way to get to excellent regional transit service that does much more than deliver a few thousand people to downtown in the morning and take them home at night. Most of the freeways have HOV/transit lanes already. An arterial BRT system would move people around all day, and maybe all night, in both directions. Commuter origins also become destinations.

This system would provide transit options to millions of people.

In this stylized map, a number of transit innovations are brought forward. All are based on the concept of connecting together the places where most of the people are. One of those innovations is the idea of “Regional Rapid Bus,” (orange lines) or bus rapid transit, running in dedicated guideways in the freeways. (Thin orange lines are BRT in mixed traffic.) The important concept is that the public already owns all of that right of way and infrastructure and its capacity is simply increased by adding more transit vehicles going to more places, not just as park & ride service in the morning and afternoon.

There is also much more light rail service, creating a system that also connects large and small centers while providing access to many more places because of its fine-grained nature. This is high-quality, very reliable service, much different from buses in the street, but it’s still focused on neighborhoods (although some are very large.)

Other proposals include intercity rail, more frequent local bus service, and more park & ride service.

This is just one vision for how the Houston region could provide the most access to the most people at the least cost.  We hope it is useful.

This post was derived from the most recent issue of TOMORROW magazine which is available online. Please contact Houston Tomorrow if you would like one or more physical copies of the magazine.

The City determined the building which housed the majority of Building Code Enforcement activities was too small, not energy efficient, with minimal amenities for customers and employees. Other permitting activities were housed in multiple locations. Customers seeking permits often were required to drive from location to location.

The City wanted to solve these functional issues and demonstrate its commitment to sustainable development.  A 5 story 1920’s Rice warehouse close to the CBD, the Amtrak Station (home for future heavy rail), and the Buffalo Bayou bike trails was identified. The Design team’s Analysis showed the 180,000 sf building could house most permitting activities, and that its adaptive reuse would anchor the East end of the redeveloping Washington Corridor. The architect was asked to prepare cost estimates comparing new construction and the proposed reuse project.  One favorable factor for the reuse project was the ability to use existing shaded parking lot under the HOV lane one block from the site.  This lot provided sufficient parking for employees freeing on site parking for patrons eliminating the need to construct another parking garage in Houston.  Adaptive reuse project proved the best approach.

The City embraced the idea of exposing the buildings various construction techniques, efficiently organizing open offices on a 37,000 square foot floor plate and celebrating the moment by integrating art for citizens in a way not seen since the WPA. Programming and design began as the departments of the City were contacted and needs assessments developed.  The PM at Risk was selected during schematic design and weekly team meetings began with full participation from City, Design Team, and PM.  Every detail was discussed and considered – aesthetics, functionality, design, and constructability.   A primary goal was to maximize the use of sustainable building methods and techniques; the building was to house the City’s Green Building Resource Center which showcases green building practices to the public.  Buildings design was, governed by a strict guiding principal: any “green” technology or materials used, that exceeded the norm, were required to have an estimated return on investment of less than ten years.  Thru this analysis the team was able to justify the High Efficiency “Frictionless” HVAC units and under floor air. This allowed the team to locate all major wiring and cabling under the floor, drilling down to install lights, tailored to daylighting conditions, as well as cameras and fire detection equipment eliminating the clutter of exposed conduit and maintaining future flexibility. Energy modeling of the exterior masonry triple wythe walls defied logic illustrating new thermally broken windows were more beneficial than wall insulation.  The adaptive reuse of the building, the ability to expose existing materials, the use of an open plan, and using the raised floor to level the old ware house floor allowed a dramatic reduction of building material that would flow to the waste stream. To the delight design team this allowed the exterior walls to be exposed and breathe as originally designed. LEED points were the by product not the goal. Strictly following this principal the building is tracking a LEED gold rating while City ordnance only requires Certified. This policy has provided the city and the team a whole new way to talk about the efficacy of sustainability.

Houston has a mandatory 1.75% of total costs set aside for civic art.  The design team conducted interviews and selected a local artist, to manage the program; a team member who shared the vision of a highly functional, cost effective facility that would be radically different from the usual municipal building.  Joining the collaborative design team early on allowed the team to identify opportunities for “artful interventions” throughout the building.

An interior freight elevator was removed providing a light shaft and communicating stair to connect the previously departments. At the basement level monitors serve as inverse skylights. The old loading docks provided portals  between the clip on lobby and the racetrack, a thirty station desk facilitating transactions. Internal stairs not meeting code were eliminated in favor of external stairs that provided an identifiable image from the adjacent freeway. The exterior elevator tower was rebuilt and  clad in stainless steel and became the palate for Dick Wray’s iconic representation of his Houston.

This entirely collaborative process has been a major factor in the overwhelming success of the project.  The building met and exceeded all expectations.  Permitting functions for different departments are now co-located allowing for shared common functions such as cashiering, printing, reception, customer service representatives, etc. It is a truly civic building filled with largely local art of all types from Dick Wray’s iconic metal wrap on an exterior elevator tower to murals, recycled metal assemblage, etched photographs, and more. More importantly, though, it is an efficiently designed workspace and a comfortable facility for the customers.  The building exposes its bones to the delight of contractors and children. The open plan allows all access to light and view. There are employee showers for those who bike to work and a “white bike” program which loans bikes and helmets to employees for short trips during the work day.  The building now houses over ninety percent of all permitting activities for the City of Houston in one single location.  The city anticipates significant cost savings from these efficiencies also.

EPA %Energy Reduction:      54%

kBtu/Sf.Ft./Yr:                         41

!00% Renewable Energy (Wind)

kBtu/Sf.Ft./Yr:                         41

Team members Bill Neuhaus (Principal in Charge)

Mindy Wilkinson Mechlem (Project Architect)

Jay Mason (Project Manager)

Kristi Byers (Director of Sustainability)

Michael Nguyen

Sheila Rowley

Heyward Dixon

Michelle Bowers

Martin Ma

Rachel Johansen

April Phelps

Chelsea Reimer

Address 1320 McGowen Street, Houston , TX 77004

Artist’s Involved in Project

Dick Wray, Untitled, 2011, Exterior elevator tower. Meant to brand the facility, serve as an icon. Reflects the diversity of Houston.

Havel Ruck Projects, 2011, Torrent, Several tons of recycled metals were donated by Spectrum Metal Recycling. Dean and Dan created a high energy wall sculpture with repurposed scrap metal at the entrance to the Green Building Resource Center.

Metalab Studio, Cloud Code, 2011, created an interactive work in the building’s lobby. CO2 and motion sensors respond to real time people movement and give a series of signals on a large screen near the north entrance.

Kaneem Smith, Remanent Reverie, 2011, repurposed burlap coffee bags to create an environment between two lobby seating areas. The bags were sewn in tubes, hand painted and hang from the ceiling. When touch, wind chimes and bells sound from within.

Mary Margaret Hansen, Sense of Place, 2011, A series of vintage Houston maps and blue prints for Houston projects that include the Astrodome, the first Hobby Airport and HINES Galleria are montaged and installed as wallpaper the bank of cashiers in the lobby. MMH has a half dozen other text walls including that on level 3 “Overhead” which plays back the words and phrases used by plan reviewers and client during the permitting process.

Green Coffee, Jesse Sifuentes, 2011, brings the mural tradition into the permitting center and speaks to the impact of the Port of Houstons’ designation as the only green coffee port west of the Mississippi. The mural is adjacent to the lobby coffee shop. Sifuentes second mural is on level 4, View From the East.

Gonzo 247, Information Highway and Sun Set in the City, 2011

Serena Lin Bush, Sky Light, 2011, Monitors in the pit of the central staircase reflect Houston sky in real time, activated by three cameras on the building’s roof.

Geoff Winningham, mural sized photographic images of Buffalo Bayou on metal

Agnes Welsh Eyster, 2011, hand etched metal panels on the lobby’s central reception area and security center suggest the meandering topography  of Buffalo Bayou

Links

Studio Red Architects

Studio RED Architects Project PDF: Here

Lisa Gray’s article in the Houston Chronicle: Gray: Coffee, not Kafka

Mary Margaret Hansen Blog

Hester + Hardaway PhotoGypsies

Carnegie Vanguard High School was designed by RdlR Architects with the notion of “School as an Interactive Place for Talent Development and Support to the Act of Learning”. Through Carnegie’s history, it has been consistently one of the two top performing schools in HISD, even though it has not had a suitable facility for its students. This vanguard school for the Gifted and Talented will finally have a facility specifically designed to support its educational mission. The project Design Objectives are:

• Create a Collegiate Environment that Supports the Emphasis on Creativity and Innovation
• Provide an Interactive Environment
• Link Indoor and Outdoor Spaces
• Overtly Demonstrate Good Stewardship of the Environment and Energy Conservation
• Integrate Sound Urban Design Principles in Campus Development

SITE

The Carnegie Vanguard High School site is centrally located, adjacent to Downtown, in Houston’s historic Fourth Ward. The Carnegie site is contiguous with the Gregory Lincoln Magnet School site, creating an HISD two school urban campus. Carnegie Vanguard HS is developed on the southern urban edge of the site engaging the Settegast Building, an existing historic art deco building that is on the school site.

URBAN DESIGN

The school building is sited close to the street edge engaging an existing historic building which was re-purposed as the fine arts complex for the school. The building turns the corner, at the two major streets that it faces, with a symbolic architectural expressive statement of the library as a “House of Learning”. To maximize the open space in this tight urban site, the student and faculty parking is provided in a two-level parking structure between the two schools in a way that both schools can share parking at individual peak periods of use.

The school’s green space provides much needed recreational area not only for the school students but for the surrounding urban community. A collaborative agreement was developed between the Houston Independent School District, the City of Houston, and the Fourth Ward Management District, for the use of the school’s green space. To expand the urban open space in the tightly developed adjacent Fourth Ward community, the sports fields were located directly across the street from an existing small pocket park, and will contain baseball, soccer, and sandlot volleyball fields. Tennis courts are also provided on the top deck of the parking garage.

The school is developed around two courtyards which provide the heart of the campus. The main courtyard is designed for students to congregate or contemplate in individual, small, or large groups. The second court is developed as an amphitheatre and outdoor dining area. This area engages the existing historic Settegast building into the campus and provides a backdrop to the outdoor stage of the amphitheatre.

Carnegie Fine Arts Center

ARCHITECTURE

The architecture of this school was developed to support the nature of an interactive educational process for the gifted and talented. Students will have the opportunity to learn in multiple ways and in varied interactive spaces ranging from flexible classrooms, to outdoor classrooms on roof tops, adjacent to green roof gardens overlooking Houston’s downtown skyline. The school building provides a variety of engaging environments that can be used for academic or social purposes throughout the day.

Ground Level Floor Plan

Second Level Floor Plan

The two story facility is organized about a central courtyard with three Academic wings surrounding it. The fourth side opens to the amphitheatre court which is contained by the Multipurpose wing and the Fine Arts Center developed within the existing historic Settegast Building. The largest communal area is the Multipurpose room, which when combined with the upper loft overlooking it, provides a space large enough to congregate the entire student body. The daily ritual of a single lunch hour where all grade levels meld together will be held in this area and provide a variety of options for the dining experience, including the visually connected adjacent outdoor sheltered deck area, at the base of the amphitheatre hill.

View from Academic Wing

School Court Yard

The building is designed with simple structural and building systems to achieve economy, allowing the entry and library architectural statements as the primary visual interest points of the design. Three primary materials are used on the exterior of the building: architecturally treated concrete tilt-up walls, structural glazed tile, and glass window walls. Color is also used as accents to engage and invite.

Outdoor Classroom Adjacent to Roof Garden

The school is designed to value the surrounding urban community and compliment the scale of the neighborhood. It is sited to face the street with an urban edge, and an iconic expression of the library anchoring the prominent corner of the site. The school facility is anticipated to be silver or gold LEED certified. The school’s environmental systems and energy conserving strategies are overtly expressed in the architecture as an educational tool for the students.

More about the project and the concepts for design can be found here.

About RdlR Architects

RdlR Architects is a full service architectural firm committed to creative and innovative problem solving. Established in 1982, the Firm has been involved in the design of a broad spectrum of project types for public, private and non-profit clients. For further information visit our website at www.rdlr.com.

fibroCITY was conceived and designed by the Houston office of Perkins+Will, who envision a pedestrian-oriented, community-driven environment that physically bridges over the city’s existing highway system as a means of reconnecting urban communities. This design entry for the Living City Design Competition responds to the history of highway development in Houston. The selected site, located at highway 288 south of downtown, was divided socially and economically by the highway’s development in the 1960s and 70s — conditions which still exist today.

The proposed solution bridges over the highway while still allowing the highway to exist and function as a transit element. The project provides a physical platform of amenities, green space, and socially equitable, multi-use structures intended to attract and unite the divided communities. fibroCITY is also designed to capture the wasted wind energy produced by vehicles moving on the highway below, and it is designed to capture water for reuse and irrigation.

fibroCITY provides a model for future development that can be replicated throughout the highway network to restore Houston’s urban communities. The Living City Design Competition offers a rigorous challenge to designers: apply the restorative design principles of the Living Building Challenge to the scale of the city. Teams were asked to design “models of truly sustainable cities” and qualifying entries adhered to the eight areas of restorative design outlined by the Living Building Challenge version 2.0, including site, water, energy, health, materials, social equity, beauty, and process. More about the competition and the concepts of restorative design can be found at the International Living Future website https://ilbi.org/lcdc.

About Perkins+Will

Established in 1935, Perkins+Will (www.perkinswill.com) is an integrated design firm and a member of the Living Building Community. Social responsibility has been a driving philosophy at Perkins+Will since the firm’s beginnings.

The history of the city of Houston was written in bold strokes with inventive ideas that sometimes bordered on craziness. Once upon a time we had not landed on the moon, ever built an enclosed sports stadium, or put an ice rink in a shopping mall. Those were groundbreaking and historic, if not crazy at the time, ideas. It is time once again to call upon our city’s sense of inventiveness to transform our greatest physical resource, our bayous.

In 1912, a Landscape Architect and Planner by the name of Arthur C. Comey reported to the Houston Park Commission that “the backbone of a park system for Houston will be its bayou and creek valleys, which readily lend themselves to trails and parks and cannot so advantageously be used for any other purpose.” In 2000, the Quality of Life Coalition & the Greater Houston Partnership (GHP) put an expanded version of this vision on its Quality of Life Agenda. In a collaborative effort involving over 100 organizations and stakeholders, the time is now ripe to complete Comey’s vision. The Bayou Greenway Initiative is a plan to add nearly 250 miles of trails and 1,600 acres of parks along our 10 major bayous, creating an interconnected system of parks and trails linking people, places and green space, while enhancing air and water quality, reducing flooding, and stimulating economic development.

The overall vision is to provide public access to the major bayous that flow across long expanses of both undeveloped and highly urbanized land. Shared -use trails would connect neighborhoods and parks to the bayous, with existing trails integrated into the overall system whenever feasible. The results of the Bayou Greenway Initiative will be seen across the entire greater Houston region, as residents of every neighborhood in the city will ultimately benefit from the expansion and improvement of greenspace along our bayous. The quality of life improvements anticipated, such as increased access to recreation space, cleaner air and cleaner water, go hand-in-hand with the anticipated economic benefits. Such a system of parks and greenspace will help Houston compete with other great cities attracting the new intellectuals of the 21st century who have voiced desire to have access to exceptional recreation facilities in addition to employment opportunities.

The region’s bayous provide critical storm water drainage, but they do so for only a few days out of the year. Harris County Flood Control has demonstrated a willingness to allow trails to be built within the rights of way and easements and has partnered with management districts, TIRZ’s, homeowners associations and others to provide long-term trail maintenance. As more bayous are enhanced and reconstructed to provide better flood protection, the Bayou Greenway Initiative seeks to leverage those construction dollars to build connective bayou trails and parks.

Stakeholders groups, like the Houston Parks Board, Buffalo Bayou Partnership, Greens Bayou Corridor Coalition, Bayou Land Conservancy & Houston Wilderness have mapped land parcels adjacent to each bayou, determined what is under public control, pinpointed the location of existing trails, established approximate land acquisition and improvement costs, and have already secured several key properties. Overall land acquisition is projected to cost approximately $200 million while trail construction will cost about $300 million. And while a half billion dollars is a sizable amount of money, the Bayou greenway Initiative improves Houston’s quality of life, image, and future prosperity more than anything else we can do. Reliant Stadium cost about the same amount of money, as did construction of only 8 miles of the Katy Freeway. By comparison, the Bayou Greenway Initiative will add to the City of Houston’s existing hike and bike trails, bike lanes and shared use trails to create an interconnected transportation network over 550 miles long.

Although the idea may be nearly 100 years old, it is important to remember the advances made in park and trail construction in only the last few years. For example, the Buffalo Bayou Partnership’s efforts in Downtown Houston have transformed Allen’s Landing, Spring & Cypress Creeks have developed trails that connect parks & kayak trails, the Corps of Engineers is building trails as a recreational component of their channeling project along Sims Bayou, Harris County Flood Control has created a new detention model which combines recreational use at Arthur Storey Park, and Harris County Precinct 3’s Terry Hershey Park includes over 10 miles of bayou trails. Combine each of these successes and you have the blueprint for the Bayou Greenway Initiative.

As the initiative moves toward implementation, the GHP will continue lobbying efforts with state and local politicians. The Houston Parks Board will continue to work with the community, increasing partnerships with other bayou organizations, continue on-going communication with its public partners, and pursue private funding opportunities. In addition, a large consortium of bayou stakeholders has been formed with the Quality of Life Coalition, the Bayou Preservation Association, Houston Wilderness, Harris County, all the major bayou groups and conservation groups, in order to foster the partnerships necessary to successfully implement the far-reaching goal of providing greenways accessible to all Houston area residents and visitors. As construction implementation occurs over the next 10-15 years, it will not be so crazy at all to embrace the moniker “The Bayou City.”

The story of CITYCENTRE begins with the closing of Town & Country mall in 2004. The Mall originally opened in 1983 and was a fairly typical development for this period. The 37-acre site at I-10 and Beltway 8 included a 400,000 sf atrium mall, a 150,000 sf Neiman Marcus, parking structures, and an abundance of surface parking. Competition from surrounding developments, however, left the mall virtually empty by the year 2000. Midway Companies purchased the site and brought Gensler on board in 2004.

In evaluating the site’s redevelopment potential, research confirmed the strong regional demographics: almost 2 million people within a 20 minute drive, 140,000 households within a 5 mile radius, and an average household income of $100,000. Midway and Gensler embarked on a cross country benchmarking tour, visiting, evaluating and documenting 27 mixed-use development projects in 17 cities throughout the country. Valuable lessons were learned regarding the proper program mix, street design, public spaces, hardscape and landscape, and architectural aesthetics. From this deeper insight, a clear vision emerged for a dense mixed-use environment unprecedented in Houston.

The development goals included a thoughtful integration with the surrounding developments, with success measured not only in financial terms, but by positive community impact. The design goal was the creation of a compelling destination, an urban place possessing a unique character with clear circulation patterns, pedestrian-friendly streets, gathering places, and amenities.

Existing site structures were carefully evaluated for potential reuse and it was ultimately determined to retain only the three parking structures from the original development.

The master planning challenge was to create public spaces that define the character of the district while providing viable development parcels and easy access to parking. The solution was a major north/south boulevard, and minor east/west cross streets, with a plaza at the heart of the development. The new infrastructure allowed for 18 development parcels, anticipating 1.8 million square feet of new construction. Each of the development parcels was reserved for a particular programmatic type, and all buildings are multi-story with retail at street level.

CITYCENTRE offers a symbiotic mixture of uses with 654 single and multi family residential units, 425,000 sf of office space, 400,000 sf of retail and entertainment, a 150,000 sf fitness facility, and a 250-key hotel, all supporting and enhancing the vitality of the development. CITYCENTRE creates a wonderful pedestrian environment with landscaped streets, generous sidewalks, and a plaza for gathering and events at the heart of the development.

CITYCENTRE exemplifies the goals and standards of the New Urbanism movement, and the increasing focus on livable communities and sustainable neighborhood development. Community connectivity, development density, reduced parking footprint, pedestrian environments, public spaces, and mixed-use diversity are all identified as critical elements in creating transformational environments which impact the way people live, work and socialize. CITYCENTRE serves as a tangible and very successful example of the application of those planning principles and design elements.

By 2035, the eight-county Houston-Galveston region is expected to grow by an additional 3.5 million people. The Livable Centers program is a new strategy in H-GAC’s 2035 Regional Transportation Plan to address this growth. The Houston-Galveston Area Council and the City of Houston co-sponsored this Livable Centers Study for the Ensemble/HCC light rail station area in Midtown.

Livable Centers are safe, sustainable, mixed-use neighborhoods where people can live, work, and play with less reliance on their cars. Well connected destinations make walking, bicycling, and transit more convenient. Livable Centers create unique, identifiable places, bolster civic pride, and focus resources for economic development.

Close to Everything
The Midtown neighborhood’s Ensemble/HCC light rail station is at the heart of Houston’s urban core. The neighborhood is within five miles of Houston’s four major employment centers, arts, entertainment, sports and major convention facilities, five universities and half a dozen graduate institutions. The area is extremely connected with easy access to Downtown, the Texas Medical Center, the Museum District, the University of Houston, Texas Southern University, Reliant Center, Neartown, Greenway Plaza, Uptown, and The Galleria. The location will soon be even more convenient with the completion of five new light rail lines connected to the existing Main Street line.

Three Vibrant Districts
The plan creates a road map for building on Midtown’s location, commercial activity, and residential popularity. Activity will increase in the Design, Arts and College districts. Catalytic projects and major street improvements will link the districts together.

New Destinations
Development projects in each district would increase activity and draw visitors from all over the city. The Independent Arts Collaborative (IAC) on Main Street along the light rail line would house over ten local grass roots arts organizations and add a new population of artists to the neighborhood. A mixed-use Office Building on Elgin would bring more retail and restaurant destinations to this pedestrian-oriented shopping corridor.

Public Investment
The plan calls for significant investment in a renewed public realm. Streets will be improved to provide wider sidewalks, more shade, and better lighting and signage. All this adds up to a stronger sense of place, a more comfortable pedestrian experience, and enhanced security.

Private Investment
The plan calls for adjusting regulations to make it easier for landowners to build the projects that will bring life to the area. For example, a proposed mixed-use Student Housing complex could add a critical mass of students to the College District. Proposed changes to parking and setback regulations would facilitate more affordable housing types. By counting on-street and shared garage parking spaces, developers can build more units by offering fewer parking spaces on site. Relief from development regulations makes it easier to build more units on small lots while keeping rents low.

Click here to view the full study summary.

Morris Architects
Project Manager, Architecture & Urban Design

Design Workshop, Inc.
Urban Planning & Public Realm Design

Bay Area Economics
Economic Analysis

CDS Market Research I Spillette Consulting
Local Market Research

Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates
Transportation

Walter P. Moore and Associates, Inc.
Traffic, Parking & Civil

Knudson
Community Relations

Houston’s first ‘green’ multifamily housing development
New Hope Housing, Inc. is proud to announce the opening of 2424 Sakowitz, a supportive, single room occupancy (SRO) development, located in Greater Fifth Ward/Denver Harbor. As a LEED for Homes certified property, 2424 Sakowitz is Houston’s first ‘green’ multifamily housing development, and it is platinum!

New Hope’s core purpose is to stabilize lives by offering permanent, affordable apartment homes in a dignified, supportive environment to adults who live singly on limited incomes. New Hope is committed to the development and operation of 1,000 SRO efficiency apartments with supportive services by 2014 and to be a permanent institution serving Houstonians.

As New Hope’s largest SRO affordable housing community, the Sakowitz development contains 166 units. Sakowitz is an enduring design, created through a process that included: client, landscape architect, craftsmen, engineers, and community participants. It will prove durable, resource efficient, and cost effective to operate, with materials of above-average quality used for maintenance efficiency. Lower energy and maintenance expenditures – via green construction – allow New Hope to offer life-stabilizing, quality housing at a more stable rental rate.

For New Hope, being ‘green’ displays their continued commitment as the lifetime owner of their properties – properties that need sustainable features to endure as community assets. Green features at Sakowitz include:

- Smart site location and design
- Sustainable landscaping with over 100 native tree plantings
- Water-conserving appliances and fixtures
- Water-conserving irrigation system including rain water tanks
- Water retention system
- Efficient energy use with Energy Star appliances
- Use of recycled materials
- Roofing, paving, and plantings that reduce Heat-Island Effect
- HVAC system for effective heating/cooling distribution
- Effective lighting and shading

Sakowitz was designed by Val Glitsch, FAIA, LEED AP, the same architect who designed New Hope’s award-winning Canal Street Apartments. Sakowitz is situated within a one-mile radius of a full-service grocery store, a convenience store, and several restaurants. It is located on METRO bus lines 26 and 80.

Each living unit is fully-furnished and includes a microwave and refrigerator, and a private, tiled bath. The central public wing of the property includes community spaces featuring:

- Reception area with 24/7 front desk staffing
- Fully-furnished community rooms (television/dining/library)
- Community kitchen
- Fully-equipped business center
- Coin-operated washer/dryer facilities
- Service coordinator offices for on-site case management
- Property management office
- Public telephone available 24/7
- Courtyard with a gazebo, water feature, and horseshoe pit
- Two patio areas, one featuring flowers and one with barbeque grills for outdoor cooking

New Hope’s experience suggests that 2424 Sakowitz will be transformative to the neighborhood. Sakowitz will not only enhance the area aesthetically and spur additional development, but more importantly Sakowitz will enhance the health and safety of the property’s tenants and the greater surrounding community.

For lease information, please contact Joe Martinez, the Community Manager for Sakowitz, at 713.671.2424 or 2424sakowitz@newhopehousing.com. Please visit their micro-site at www.newhopehousing.com/2424sakowitz.

Photography by Bruce Glass

Click on the image above to enlarge.

Buffalo Bayou from downtown to Shepherd Drive is Houston’s Iconic Landscape. The result of a century-old civic vision to develop a greenbelt extending from downtown west to a regional park, now known as Memorial Park, this green space is one of Houston’s triumphs of civic will and planning implemented over a period of decades in the early 20th century. While the view from Memorial Drive and Allen Parkway still offers green vistas and dramatic contrasts with the downtown skyline, the green space itself is suffering from years of under-funded maintenance and the absence of a master plan to guide improvements, both of which are preventing this unique natural asset from fulfilling its potential as one of this country’s great urban parks.

With significant philanthropic support led by the Kinder Foundation, the Buffalo Bayou Partnership (BBP) embarked on a privately-funded master plan for the area earlier this year in partnership with the City of Houston (City) and the Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD). As the owner of the land, the City must play an instrumental role in overseeing this redevelopment process and commit to fund maintenance upon completion of improvements. More than 50 years after its last investment in this area, HCFCD was invited to conduct a parallel preliminary engineering study of the bayou channel to determine how the channel might be restored and maintained in an environmentally sensitive manner while also improving its storm water storage and conveyance capacity. And based on the plan presented in this report, BBP is prepared both to raise up to $50 million in private funds so the ambitious improvements to this green space can be implemented in an era of limited government resources and also to play a central role in the park’s ongoing maintenance.

Based on BBP’s visionary master plan for Buffalo Bayou from Shepherd Drive ten miles east to the Turning Basin released in 2002, Buffalo Bayou and Beyond, this more detailed master plan seeks to enhance the green space, improve recreational amenities, restore the bayou channel, and improve access to nearby neighborhoods and the city at large, transforming the area into Buffalo Bayou Park, the centerpiece and focal point for Houston’s growing network of linear parks and amenities along the region’s bayous. The master plan builds upon current and planned projects that are already under way in the area:

- The Rosemont Bridge and connector trails that are well on their way to completion, funded by the City’s Memorial Heights Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone #5 (TIRZ #5).

- The Jaeme Plensa artwork at the Rosemont Bridge’s south approach just east of Studemont, to be completed in early 2011.

- Reconstruction of the Sandy Reed Memorial Trail by the City and TxDOT, scheduled to begin construction in 2011.

- HCFCD’s Pilot Project west of downtown, which has tested channel restoration concepts and public support for this work.

With this Master Plan and the related HCFCD preliminary engineering report complete and indications of strong support for the project from Houston’s citizens and philanthropic community, the City, BBP and HCFCD are positioned to quickly move forward into final design and engineering in early 2011. Furthermore, the goal is to begin channel restoration work and improvements to the green space in mid-2012. This schedule should allow for a seamless transition from TxDOT’s hike and bike trail construction project into overall green space improvements described in this Master Plan and overseen by BBP and HCFCD. If approvals and permits are obtained in a timely manner, construction should be completed by mid-2015.