The recently demolished Houston Main Building, owned by MD Anderson, will soon become a simply designed green space after debris is cleared around August. The unnamed park, designed by Keiji Asakura, features native rain gardens and meadows in contrast with the dense urban surroundings.  The green space will remain in place for several years until MD Anderson begins construction on a new clinical building.

ASLA Texas Section members who participated included: Keiji Asakura, Margaret Robinson and Kimberly Terrell.

The term “creative placemaking” may not have made its way into your everyday vocabulary, but it’s happening in a very active way in Houston’s Third Ward. Specifically, that place is the Park at Palm Center, and helping to make it more creative is a grant to the neighborhood’s University of Houston from the National Endowment for the Arts under the auspices of the “Our Town” initiative.

UH was one of only 51 recipients nationwide of the Our Town grant, receiving $100,000 to support a series of public art installations, new media initiatives and cultural activities at the Park at Palm Center at 5400 Griggs Rd.

“The NEA’s really trying to do something remarkable,” says UH research professor Carroll Parrott Blue, who applied to the program on behalf of the university’s Third Ward Arts Initiative. That initiative won the hearts of the NEA thanks to its New Media Technology for Public Spaces committee, which draws upon 20 design professionals, educators and local residents. UH president Renu Khator, Mayor Annise Parker and Judge Zinetta A. Burney were also crucial teammates in the application, said Blue.

Once an abandoned lot, the Park at Palm Center is currently a simple urban park surrounded by low-income housing. The Our Town grant will sponsor new features, including a fruit orchard, walking trail, barbecue area, splash park, playground, vegetable garden and public gathering space with a pavilion for local events and productions. The park’s second phase is being designed by landscape architecture firm Asakura Robinson, the masterminds behind the grounds of the Sakowitz Apartments and Montrose’s Mandell Park.

Then, there’s the promised “new media” element. That buzz phrase could be implemented in the form of interactive multimedia-based artworks, a wifi hotspot and learning stations where visitors may enrich their understanding of such topics as local history and nutrition.

“It will be a real lab of sorts,” says Theola Petteway, executive director of the Old Spanish Trail/Almeda Corridors Redevelopment Authority Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ #7). “There’s a digital divide in this area because a lot of people don’t have access to computers. Hopefully this will get people more excited about the Internet, while also promoting exercise or getting involved in the urban garden,” she explains.

Among the authority’s other projects are the redesign of Emancipation Park and renovations to thoroughfares Dowling and Holman streets with enhanced intersections, street lights, public art, pedestrian amenities and historical markers. A YMCA and elementary school on Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard recently opened to the public and a new library on Griggs Road is also on the map.

“What we’re hoping is that this will generate other renovations in the area, attract new businesses and make it a more liveable place,” says Blue. Part of that vision is the Palm Center stop on the future Southeast METRORail line. “If you begin to pay attention to a place and people come in, vitality will follow,” she says.

Envision a neighborhood highlighted by new parks and a growing network of cultural institutions, all knit together by two new public transit corridors — that’s what the future holds for the ever-vibrant Third Ward.

Completion for the second phase of the Park at Palm Center is slated for 2012. Want to have your say on the park’s blueprint? View promotional video and Take this survey.

The Park at Palm Center as it stands today. Phase II will include a community garden and Smart Park elements.

I like to think of bike trails like highways or subway lines. The are usually separated out from the normal street grid, and there are usually only occasional “off-ramps” or “stations” that provide connections to the neighborhoods that they run through. And, like highways and subway lines, they are often the most useful for making longish trips (at least for commuters). If I’m heading up to the Heights, I’ll go out of my way to take the trail along White Oak Bayou. If I’m just heading to the office, I’ll usually take city streets, even though the trail is only an extra 5 or 10 blocks.

I35W in Minneapolis in the area I grew up. No on or off ramps through one of the densest parts of the city limits access to jobs and homes.

Like highways, trails can sometime have access issues… areas that are close to the trail but unable to access it easily. This is obviously frustrating, both for residents and those who would like to access jobs or services in the neighborhood. For commuters, there is often an issue of access to transit as well. For these folks, the trails aren’t really an amenity, even though they run right through the neighborhood. Instead, they are invisible. Out of sight and out of mind.

We were recently selected, on a team lead by LAN, to help create links between the Near Northside neighborhood and the Heritage West (White Oak Bayou) Trail, and we couldn’t be more excited! The trail links will not only provide connectivity for cyclists to this exciting neighborhood (Near Northside is one of my favorite neighborhoods in the city to explore) and from the neighborhood to the Sixth and First Wards and the Heights on the one side and downtown and the East End on the other, but will also allow the neighborhood new connections to the natural areas of both White Oak and Little White Oak Bayous, areas formerly disconnected by the Hardy Rail Yards and the industrial uses that line the south and west parts of the neighborhood and to Stude Park.

I say this place is moat like a real Sushi restaurant in Houston- Teppay on Westheimer at Hillcroft.

Too bad that we need to be reminded about this but maybe we should have them in more places.

If you missed the meeting, the presentation boards are below:

Please take time to fill out the survey, which remains available online at www.walkbikeclearlake.com.

The remaining public meeting dates are:

July 20, 2011 (Ideas and Recommendations) 6 pm, preceded by a group bike ride at 5 pm.

September 7, 2011 (Implementation Priorities) 6 pm.

Both meetings are at the CLCCA Pavilion Building at 16511 Diana Lane.

You can join our team or support us by clicking here!

The ride begins & ends at Discovery Green in Downtown Houston and has 10 and 20 mile courses.
8:30 a.m. start rain or shine
$25 Registration includes t-shirt, breakfast, route support, snacks

Following the ride, all our supporters are invited to join riders and MC Sherry Williams from KHOU at Discovery Green for the Post-Ride Party with live entertainment, children’s games, sponsor activities and food & beverages sponsored by Sysco.

You can also start your own team by clicking here.