HOUSTON | Parks/Civic Spaces & Recreation Thread

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https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ho...ariano-2335103

Houston Will Soon Be Home to a High-Tech, Clean-Energy Public Artwork That Will Generate Electricity for Its Neighborhood

The sculpture, dubbed the Arch of Time, has been designed by German architect Riccardo Mariano.

Adam Schrader, July 12, 2023

A new public artwork called the Arco del Tiempo, or Arch of Time, will generate clean energy for Texans still rebuilding from the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

City officials in Houston have accepted a proposal from German architect Riccardo Mariano for the massive, futuristic installation developed with the Land Art Generator, a nonprofit that seeks to advance renewable energy-focused public art.

Mariano said he expects the arch, when completed, to be covered in solar panels that will generate 400 megawatt-hours of electricity per year—about what 40 Texan homes consume.

The energy produced will first go to the Talento Bilingue de Houston, a bilingual English-Spanish theater in the East End near the Guadalupe Plaza Park where the public artwork will be placed.

“That institution, which is very important to Houston, will have no energy bill at all,” Robert Ferry, the co-director of Land Art Generator, told Artnet News. He added that any additional energy will first go to lights and other services in the park with anything remaining to the city of Houston. The team did not provide a timeline for the sculpture’s completion.

A rendering of the Arch of Time sculpture planned for Houston. Photo courtesy of Riccardo Mariano

A rendering of a concert underneath the Arch of Time. Photo courtesy of Riccardo Mariano.

A diagram shows how colored glass and shapes are used to tell time with the giant sundial. Photo courtesy of Riccardo Mariano

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Katy Prairie Preserve

https://thekatynews.com/2023/07/13/c...-katy-prairie/

Coastal Prairie Conservancy preserves additional land on the historic Katy Prairie

Jul 13, 2023

The Coastal Prairie Conservancy (CPC) announces the preservation of 160 acres on the historic Katy Prairie, increasing lands conserved by the land trust to over 30,000 acres. CPC secured over $2 million from incredibly generous individuals, foundations including The Brown Foundation, Inc., The John M. O’Quinn Foundation, and The Meadows Foundation, corporate partners including Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s Outdoor Fund, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) grant program to complete this critical conservation project.

The newly acquired property is located within CPC’s nine-square mile priority area on the historic Katy Prairie outside Houston, Texas, an area that plays an important role in wildlife connectivity. Protecting this area is of great urgency as these lands are in the middle of the Central Flyway and heavily utilized by migratory birds such as the sandhill crane and the long-billed curlew. In addition to the significant role this land plays in wildlife habitat, this area is also geographically important, as it forms the contiguous southwest piece of the larger Katy Prairie Preserve. The protection and enhancement of this land will contribute to the big picture of a vast and contiguous preserve system for people and wildlife.

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https://communityimpact.com/houston/...rails-project/

Fulshear officials ponder impact of potential 1093 Rails to Trails project


By Asia Armour | 5:24 PM Jul 14, 2023 CDT
Updated 5:24 PM Jul 14, 2023 CDT

The city of Fulshear and four other local entities want to redevelop 31 miles of abandoned railroad along FM 1093 to create a nature-focused trail system—but officials are cautious that the project won’t conflict with multimillion dollar, multiagency works to enhance Westpark Tollway thoroughfare.

At a June 13 meeting, Fort Bend County commissioners approved the Toll Road Authority leasing right of way to the 1093 Rails to Trails Local Government Corporation—for the construction, development, maintenance, and use of a recreational and nature preserving park and trail system.

The 1093 Rails to Trails LGC includes:
Austin County
Eagle Lake
Wallis
Weston Lakes
Fulshear

The FBCTRA leased the right-of-way only until the agency extends Westpark Tollway, Deputy Operating Officer Lisa Castañeda said in an email. The design phase of the extension costs $7 million and is anticipated to conclude by the end of summer, Community Impact previously reported.

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Hermann Park Commons

c/o hindesky on HAIF

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https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/a...r-future-park/

The Woodlands takes ownership of waterways, land for future park

The Woodlands Waterway had been owned by a corporation before an agreement last week.

NICOLAS PINTO | POSTED ONJULY 27, 2023, 3:25 PM (LAST UPDATED: JULY 27, 2023, 4:24 PM)

The Woodlands now controls more than 200 acres of land, including a waterway within its city limits, thanks to deals with a property developer.

The Woodlands Township Board of Directors approved a deal last Thursday between the township and the Howard Hughes Corporation, a property developer.

The agreement, which was originally agreed to in 2014 and later extended to 2023, gave The Woodlands ownership of a 208-acre tract of land for future park development, a 2.08-acre lot of land next to the Parks and Recreation Operations Center, and 24.312-acres of land in Bear Branch.

"The largest park we have in the Woodlands right now is 25, 26 acres. This is 10 times the size of that," said Bret Strong, an attorney for The Woodlands. "So, think about what can be done programming wise on a parcel of that size."

In return, Howard Hughes Corporation received the rights to a boat house plot of land on Lake Robbins, and a plot of land on Ashlane Way. The Woodlands also reduced the corporation's yearly payments for maintenance of the town center over the next five years by $60,000.

However, this wasn't the only land transaction approved in the meeting. The board also approved a deed last Thursday that would turn the Woodlands Waterway into public land. Howard Hughes Corporation previously owned the Waterway.

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https://communityimpact.com/houston/...-improvements/

Gulfton's Bayland Park gets green light for major improvements

By Melissa Enaje | 9:29 AM Jul 27, 2023 CDT
Updated 9:29 AM Jul 27, 2023 CDT

Harris County commissioners approved a master plan contract aimed at transforming Gulfton’s Bayland Park into a green space that will serve as an inclusive, prominent destination for sports leagues in southwest Houston.

“We’re so committed to revitalizing Bayland together with deep community input and doing community outreach in multilanguages and really just revitalizing that southwest part of Harris County,” Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones said at the July 18 meeting.

The details

With the county’s approval of approximately $465,000 to begin a contract with engineering firm Ardurra Group Inc., it’s the first step toward completing services that include professional landscape, architecture and engineering services for Bayland Park. The agreement includes activities that will require the agency to integrate local resident and community feedback, according to agenda documents:

Community input surveys that will be in at least five different languages

Website support, where project summaries will be available for Precinct 4 to post online

Three community workshops during the course of the project with dates to be decided:

-The first will focus on learning from the community and how the new park master plan will best serve their needs.

-The second will present the community with initial concept plans, collect community feedback and refine decisions.

-The third will present the final outcome to the community and continue involvement in future Bayland Park developments.

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Brays Bayou Greenbelt Trail Expansion

c/o 004n063 on HAIF who adds...

Coming from the east, this was as far as I could get today (a few hundred yards south of 59). Looks like they may be building a bridge here, so maybe a 59 underpass on the south/west bank? (Photo taken from the north/east bank)

This (Braeburn Glen Blvd) is where the new segment begins:

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https://metropolismag.com/projects/t...memorial-park/

The Rebirth of Houston’s Giant but Ailing Memorial Park

The newly opened Memorial Park Land Bridge and Prairie is the first phase in the revitalization of the drought-stricken 1,500-acre park, the largest urban green space in Texas.

By: Sam Lubell
Photography: Nick Hubbard

At 1,500 acres—more than twice the size of New York’s Central Park— Houston’s Memorial Park is the largest urban wilderness in the city, and in all of Texas for that matter. While beloved as a place to escape the concrete jungle— Houstonians come here to hike, bike, picnic, relax, or play tennis or golf— all was not well here for some time.

For one, the park had long been divided by a six-lane highway, Memorial Drive, which kept visitors from exploring, or even understanding, the park as a whole; dividing habitats, and interrupting natural processes like rainwater retention. And it was for years dangerously unhealthy, crippled by hands off land management, overgrowth, invasive and non-native plantings, and rotting roots; an unbalanced eco-system, increasingly vulnerable to both storms and drought due to increased peripheral development and climate change. A major drought spanning from 2011 to 2014 exposed this condition, with an estimated 80 percent of the oasis’s tree canopy destroyed in many places.

The response to this loud ecological wakeup call, and to a growing chorus of Houston residents, was a 2015 master plan led by Charlottesville and New York-based Nelson Byrd Woltz to restore and reimagine the entire park. Its first phase, the 100-acre Memorial Park Land Bridge and Prairie, which opened earlier this year, is a model for reviving and strengthening habitats and merging infrastructure with ecology; what Nelson Byrd Woltz principal Thomas Woltz calls landscape infrastructure.

“Why should we separate habitat restoration and large scale infrastructure?” asks Woltz. He adds that as cities become both denser and more vulnerable to natural disasters this approach is likely to become the norm, not the exception.

This kind of all-encompassing approach, adds Woltz, isn’t new. It was standard practice in the days of Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Central Park, who famously merged landscape, infrastructure, and culture to create some of the most impactful manmade landscapes ever created. As specialization became the norm in all the design fields, engineers (and their concrete and steel bulwarks against natural challenges like flooding ) would often come to lead major infrastructure projects, with landscape architects relegated to the planting and shaping of gardens, parks, and other greenspaces. Woltz hopes to again “expand the language of landscape architecture and what it could be.”

The firm’s wide-ranging work at Memorial Park is funded by the Houston-based Kinder Foundation and Houston’s Uptown Development Authority and managed by the Memorial Park Standards Committee (a partnership including the Memorial Park Conservancy, Houston Parks and Recreation, and other parties). The land bridge and prairie—the result of untold hours of research, design, and construction, not to mention thousands of hours of civic outreach—spans Memorial Drive via two dramatic landscape bridges, rising 34 feet above the roadway atop parabolic concrete paneled arches, cut back dramatically to visually merge with the landscape . The bridges and surrounds were blanketed with 540,000 cubic yards of soil, all taken from the park itself, carefully infused with seeds, fungi, and other natural elements from the nearby Katy Prairie. Topped with diverse plantings and amenities, the oval-shaped land bridges dramatically reduce traffic noise, re-connect habitats, expand the park’s trail system, and even provide a culvert stream corridor running under Memorial Drive, aiding significantly with park drainage.

Woltz knew things were heading in the right direction when he climbed on top of the land bridge, just topped out, and saw a slew of animal footprints in the mud. “To watch it come alive was an incredible moment,” he says.

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Buffalo Bayou East

Turkey Bend segment / warehouse renovation

c/o hindesky on HAIF


https://www.nadaaa.com/blog/category.../_turkey-bend/

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https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/...rks-board.html

Houston Endowment donates $8M to local organizations to improve parks, fight heat islands

Houston Endowment is boosting its efforts when it comes to reducing Houston’s “urban heat islands” — a term used to describe strips of concrete and cement with no trees in sight — with $8 million in funding to two local partners.

The investment will be split into $4 million grants that will be given over two years. One will go to Trees For Houston and the other to Houston Parks Board. The overarching goal is to put more Houstonians within walking distance of quality parks and to increase the tree canopy in areas where urban heat island effects are most pronounced, Bao-Long Chu, Houston Endowment’s program director for arts and park, said in an interview.

“[The funding is] an amount that we believe will supercharge [the organizations’] work,” Chu said. “We felt this amount would allow these two organizations to focus on areas that have the biggest challenges with access to green space, quality parks and tree canopies. Both of these entities have a proven record of increasing park access and green space equity.”

Houston ranks No. 4 out of 159 U.S. cities with the most intense urban heat islands, Chu said, citing a Climate Central report. This effect contributes to wild swings in temperatures in different parts of the city, so more tree canopies are needed to combat it, he said.

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https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/a...hcoming-trail/

Houston’s Memorial and Buffalo Bayou Parks to be connected by forthcoming trail

Funding from Harris County Precinct 4 will help the Houston Parks Board fill a gap between two of the city’s largest and most popular parks.

ADAM ZUVANICH | POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 6, 2023, 5:22 PM
(LAST UPDATED: SEPTEMBER 6, 2023, 6:08 PM)

Less than 2 miles separate two of the biggest and most popular parks in Houston.

But for the city's cyclists and pedestrians, getting between Buffalo Bayou Park and Memorial Park feels like a long trek filled with hazards. There is no trail along the bayou, and Memorial Drive – which is lined by homes and businesses, often busy with vehicle traffic and has a narrow, shared-use sidewalk running alongside it – is the only major roadway that connects the two urban parks.

"They're so close, yet because there's no safe, attractive connection between them, they feel so far away from each other," said Joe Cutrufo, the executive director of BikeHouston, a local nonprofit that advocates for cyclists.

That gap will be closing, though, as the Houston Parks Board is receiving $8.1 million to help make it happen. The Buffalo Bayou Greenway Connector project was selected for funding as part of the Places 4 People initiative by Harris County Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones, who announced Wednesday that the effort will provide a total of $170 million to 32 different infrastructure projects in her precinct, which includes northwestern and western parts of the county.

Among them are 13 other trail connection projects, along with a series of Brays Bayou under crossings, street intersection and sidewalk initiatives, roadway drainage projects, community parks and METRO bus shelters.

Houston Parks Board president and CEO Beth White said the nonprofit already has invested about $5.4 million into the initiative on land acquisition, work along the bayou and preliminary design. She said more detailed design work for the project, which is expected to cost a total of $13.5 million, likely will begin before the end of this year.

The trail connector will be part of the broader Bayou Greenways initiative that includes a total of 150 miles of trails along nine Houston bayous, although it was not initially part of the plan.

"We've been working on it quietly for a while," she said. "It wasn't in the original scope of the 150 miles, but we've had our eye on making that connection for some time."

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Harris County Precinct 3 Parks Master Plan

https://www.pct3.com/Explore/Parks/P...ls-Master-Plan

PDFs

Full Plan: https://www.pct3.com/Portals/45/Docu...ull Report.pdf

Introduction: https://www.pct3.com/Portals/45/Documents/Introduction_2.pdf


Parks Plan East of 45: https://www.pct3.com/Portals/45/Docu...East of 45.pdf

Parks Plan West of 45: https://www.pct3.com/Portals/45/Docu...West of 45.pdf

Trails Plan East of 45: https://www.pct3.com/Portals/45/Docu...East of 45.pdf

Appendix: https://www.pct3.com/Portals/45/Docu...Appendix_2.pdf

Harris County Precinct 3 releases plan to enhance county’s largest park system

By Melissa Enaje | 5:29 PM Sep 12, 2023 CDT
Updated 5:29 PM Sep 12, 2023 CDT

Harris County Precinct 3 will undergo improvements to its parks and trails as part of a master plan that will impact an area where more than 1 million people reside within the county’s largest park system. In a news release, Commissioner Tom Ramsey announced the Precinct 3 Parks and Trails Master Plan that aims to improve, connect and grow the area’s parks and trails network.

The comprehensive set of recommendations were developed for:

69 existing parks
Four new parks
225 miles of new trails

“We needed a plan to connect residents with our amazing green spaces,” Ramsey said. “Our population is expected to double by 2045, which means engineered solutions for green activity spaces are a must for our future generations. Thank you to the residents who took time to provide us feedback. They know their parks and trails better than anyone, so we’re confident in the information incorporated into the plan.”

The details

Harris County Precinct 3 has nearly 70 existing parks, which total more than 8,600 acres of land. Extensive acreage within the Cypress and Spring Creek greenways amounts to over 40% of the total acreage.

As part of the master plan, Precinct 3 officials completed an outreach phase to assess the needs and desires of the community, which included a total of six meetings and an online survey. The majority of respondents lived near the existing Cypress and Spring Creek Greenways, which also has the highest concentration of parks and greenways, according to plan documents.

Community feedback included:

How greenways may connect to parks
Requests for additional park athletic fields
Increased trails for pedestrians and bicyclists

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https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/...-downtown.html

Photos: Lynn Wyatt Square for Performing Arts to open in downtown Houston's Theater District

By Jeff Jeffrey – Senior reporter, Houston Business Journal
Sep 19, 2023

Houston First Corp. has scheduled the long-awaited opening of the Lynn Wyatt Square for the Performing Arts downtown for this week.

A grand opening event will be held Sept. 21, and the performing arts square will be open to the public starting Sept. 22.

During the square’s opening weekend, Houston First has scheduled a number of activities, including lawn games and live entertainment. However, the highlight will be interactive performances of “Bees,” which features human-sized bees busying themselves in the creation of a community alongside children in attendance. The performance was created by renowned Australian theater company, Polyglot Theatre.

'A game changer for downtown'
The opening marks the culmination of a $26.5 million redevelopment of the former Jones Plaza in the Theater District, which city officials have said will eventually bring to the west side what Discovery Green has brought to downtown’s east side.

“This is a game changer for downtown Houston,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a news release. “I am so excited to see this square come to life as a public space that connects the arts and, more importantly, connects people to the arts.”

The redevelopment project was funded through a collaboration between Houston First, the Downtown Redevelopment Authority and Wyatt herself.

The project kicked into high gear in 2019, when Wyatt, a well-known local philanthropist, donated $10 million to the project. Following Wyatt’s donation, the Downtown Redevelopment Authority committed an additional $10 million and Houston First added another $5 million to the project.

“I thank Houston’s living legend, Lynn Wyatt, and her family for their dedication to this city and the arts,” Turner said. “We can move mountains in this city by working together through public-private collaborations like this one between Lynn Wyatt, the Downtown Redevelopment Authority and Houston First.”

The new green space includes a flexible performance lawn for concerts and other free programs, a cascading water feature, accessible entries, gardens, trees, one-of-a-kind tête-à-tête rockers/seating, lighting and sound elements, and space for a future restaurant.

Mini murals created by Anat Ronen and Jessica Guerra, whose artist name is Guerra Girl, cover traffic boxes around the square. Houston First will maintain and operate the square, which will offer year-round programming inspired by Houston’s cultural diversity and the award-winning performing arts organizations surrounding the park.

“I love Houston, I love the arts, and I absolutely love this beautiful square. I am thrilled to support the team bringing people and the arts together in the heart of downtown,” Wyatt said in a statement. “And to have my name on such an important piece of Houston, I am humbled and grateful; this truly touches my heart. I look forward to all the good this square will do now and in the future for the people of this dynamic city and our world-class performing arts community.”

As previously announced, Los Angeles-based Rios Clementi Hale Studios served as landscape architect for the project, while Houston-based Harrison Kornberg Architects served as executive architect. Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Manhattan Construction Co. served as general contractor.

The Lynn Wyatt Square for the Performing Arts is scheduled to open to the public on Sept. 22.

COURTESY OF HOUSTON FIRST CORP

The overhaul of Jones Plaza to create the Lynn Wyatt Square for the Performing Arts broke ground in 2021.

COURTESY OF HOUSTON FIRST CORP

The project kicked into high gear in 2019, when Wyatt, a well-known local philanthropist, donated $10 million to the project. Following Wyatt’s donation, the Downtown Redevelopment Authority committed an additional $10 million and Houston First added another $5 million to the project.

COURTESY OF HOUSTON FIRST CORP

The square has space for a future restaurant to occupy.

COURTESY OF HOUSTON FIRST CORP

The restaurant space is in the heart of the Theater District.

COURTESY OF HOUSTON FIRST CORP

A cascading water feature was included in the construction plan.

COURTESY OF HOUSTON FIRST CORP

The square has a swings that patrons can use to relax, while watching a performance.

COURTESY OF HOUSTON FIRST CORP

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https://communityimpact.com/houston/...-10m-campaign/

Spark parks in Woodland Heights, Neartown among those being upgraded in $10M campaign

By Shawn Arrajj | 4:31 PM Sep 21, 2023 CDT
Updated 4:31 PM Sep 21, 2023 CDT

Community parks at Houston ISD schools in Woodland Heights and Neartown are among the 20 parks slated for improvements as part of a new $10 million campaign that also involves building 20 new parks at Houston-area public schools.

What's happening

The $10 million campaign targets Spark parks in Houston, which are parks built at school campuses that are also accessible to the broader community. The new campaign, announced at a Sept. 20 press conference, comes as officials with the city of Houston celebrate the 40-year anniversary of the city's Spark School Park Program. Spark Parks can be found at more than 200 schools across 18 Houston-area public school districts.

The big picture

As part of the $10 million campaign, Spark officials will build 20 new school parks in four years at several school districts across the Greater Houston area. In addition to that, the campaign also involves improving—or "resparking"—20 existing Spark parks. Sixteen schools were initially identified, including eight schools that will get new Spark parks and eight schools that will have existing parks improved.

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https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/...Pos=7#cxrecs_s

All phases of Exploration Green flood-control project and park in Clear Lake complete

By Sofia Gonzalez – Reporter, Houston Business Journal
Sep 29, 2023

All five phases of Exploration Green, a major 178-acre flood-control project and park area, are officially complete.

Clear Lake City Water Authority, alongside Houston-based Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam Inc. — the project’s design engineer — are holding a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the project grounds on Sept. 30. The project, which transformed a former golf course into recreational green space with five massive detention ponds, was implemented to help prevent nearby homes from flooding.

“We understand the importance of flood control measures and are dedicated to implementing innovative solutions that will contribute to the long-term resilience and safety of the surrounding communities,” Kelly Shipley, senior associate at LAN, said in a statement.

The new detention ponds have the ability to hold 100 million gallons of stormwater. To put the amount in perspective, this is equivalent to 750 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

However, Exploration Green — which is named for the community’s local exploration legacy and its proximity to Johnson Space Center — serves as a natural park. The park portion of Exploration Green comprises 153 acres of natural habitat with wetlands and native grassland areas, 6 miles of hike-and-bike trails, two athletic fields and other amenities.

Of the 40,000 people living in the direct Clear Lake area, nearly 70% will be within walking distance from one of the sections of Exploration Green, with the other 30% less than a mile from part of the project.

The first pond protected at least 150 homes from flooding during Hurricane Harvey in 2017 — and it was only about 80% complete at the time. The area also withstood Tropical Storm Imelda in 2019 and Tropical Storm Beta in 2020. With all five phases completed, Exploration Green is expected to protect between 2,000 and 3,000 homes near the floodplains by Horsepen Bayou.

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https://parkplanning.nps.gov/project...rojectID=95793

https://texashighways.com/culture/hi...ipation-trail/

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https://www.houstonchronicle.com/nei...i-18395268.php

Woodlands begins development on huge park that could connect 40-mile trail from Spring to Tomball

Claire Partain,
Staff writer
Oct. 3, 2023

The Woodlands township has approved the first stages of the upcoming South Gosling Park in Creekside Park.

The township's board of directors voted Sept. 27 to start the engineering process for the 208-acre park, which will become The Woodlands' largest once completed.

The board allocated $308,220 in funding and $30,000 in materials testing from the Parks and Recreation Needs Assessment Reserve for the initial stage of the project.

"This is a tremendous opportunity," board member Shelley Sekula-Gibbs said. "If you look at the needs assessment, the community is hungry for more amenities when it comes to all sorts of outdoor activities."

The park will also be the largest Woodlands park completed in Harris County once completed, with opportunity for passive and active recreation. The county requires Phase I to include initial engineering, wetland and flood plain analysis, cultural surveys and archaeological surveys, analyzing endangered species and measuring water currents in the area.

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https://communityimpact.com/houston/...cerated-youth/

Blackwood Skyfarm connects nature, plants hope for incarcerated youth

By Melissa Enaje | 6:00 PM Oct 17, 2023 CDT
Updated 7:24 PM Oct 17, 2023 CDT

During one of the rare days when Houston saw rain in its forecast after brutal record-breaking summer temperatures, Cath Conlon carted trays of vegetables through the elevators at a multiuse development in the heart of Downtown Houston. The president and CEO of the nonprofit Blackwood Educational Land Institute wasn’t at the wrong building, even though it housed everything from restaurant pop-ups and coworking spaces.

Instead, she was headed to bring fresh crops from her Hempstead farm to one of biggest urban rooftop farms in Texas, Blackwood’s Skyfarm. Located at POST Houston, the farm laboratory, as they call it, experiments with different regenerative agricultural techniques such as permaculture in a distinctive urban rooftop soil setting. The nonprofit also hosts various educational experiences for guests, volunteers and anyone who is interested in becoming what it calls eco-literate.

With its fresh, organic produce, the organization’s mission is to build community around food, reduce its carbon footprint and create healthier outcomes for the city with every piece of food that is distributed, sold and eaten.

Conlon and her lead farmer, Aaron Flores, were delighted that their scorched rows of crops could bask in drops of water coming from the sky.

“What I would like most people to understand about what extreme weather does to food production is it just really shortens windows. It’s cutting our seasons terribly short. August is becoming a time you cannot grow food. What is that going to look like if we're losing whole months of the year where we can’t produce food?” Flores said.

Along the 1-acre rooftop farm, some rows were empty for next season, and some rows were filled with crops that thrived in the heat, such as the hibiscus and basil plants. Toward the western side of the farm were pops of colors with the pale orange pumpkins and green watermelons. If every crop has its own how-to-survive story, then connected to each watermelon and pumpkin would be the stories of the young people who participated in Skyfarm’s latest educational program with the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department.

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https://www.houstoniamag.com/arts-an...show-expansion

Take an Early Look at the Orange Show’s Biggest Expansion Yet

The beloved, quirky Houston landmark is working on a massive new seven-acre campus.

By Brianna Griff
October 25, 2023

HOUSTON WILL SOON BE HOME to a more than seven-acre campus dedicated to recognizing the artist in everyone, as one of the city’s most beloved art landmarks plans a massive expansion.

At the heart of the new campus is the Orange Show, a whimsical complex built by one man for his favorite citrus. Tucked away in a small neighborhood behind the University of Houston, the quirky, maze-like monument was assembled by Jeff McKissack, a Houston postal worker, starting in 1956.

“All of the materials were salvaged from scrap yards and picked up from the side of the road and all of it hand-welded and handmade,” says Tommy Ralph Pace, executive director of the Orange Show Center for Visionary Arts. “He had these huge visionary ambitions that as people were traveling down to Disney World, [the Orange Show] was going to be a big competitor.”

McKissack’s dream of rivaling Disney never materialized, but something magical did emerge from the creation: a nonprofit to preserve his 3,000-square-foot construction.

The Orange Show Center for Visionary Arts (OSCVA) has evolved into a cornerstone of the Houston art scene. Since its conception in 1980, the nonprofit has not only safeguarded the Orange Show but also rescued and maintained the Beer Can House, has produced the annual Art Car Parade for the past 35 years, and developed Smither Park, which highlights mosaic artwork.

“Preserving two of Houston’s most iconic cultural landmarks was the beginning of our story,” Pace says. “It’s kind of the root of our mission, which is to celebrate the artist in everyone. This idea that ordinary people can make extraordinary things.”

In 2017, OSCVA acquired a former pallet factory that sits on 5.7 acres adjacent to the Orange Show and Smither Park. The nonprofit announced plans in November 2021 to transform the property into a new campus, complete with performance venues and maker spaces.

One of the property’s two original buildings, which currently serves as OSCVA offices, will be demolished to make way for a two-story structure with an art gallery. The concrete building that served as the actual factory will be reimagined as a unique exhibition area where visitors can view a rotating display of historic and award-winning art cars. (The Art Car Museum in the Heights will remain, as it is a separate entity from OSCVA.)

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https://www.houstonchronicle.com/lif...photo-24394509

Memorial Park prepares for grand opening of new running complex with timing track, viewing deck


Diane Cowen,
Staff writer
Oct. 30, 2023
Updated: Oct. 30, 2023 5:48 p.m.

The most recent phase of Memorial Park's master plan finishes with the Nov. 4 grand opening of the park's running complex. The event is free and open to the public.

The Running Complex is at 7575 N. Picnic Lane, on the west side of the park by the Kinder Land Bridge, and Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Prairie. It includes the 400-meter Roy Cullen Timing Track, along with a viewing deck, event space and trails. It's meant to be a place for people using all parts of the park to gather, as well as a gateway to the Bayou Wilds trails. The land bridge and prairie were finished earlier this year.

The grand opening runs 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Nov. 4 and will include DJ Johnny J music, family activities and giveaways. Vendors will include Juice Land, Houston Marathon, HOKA and Lean Body. Food and drinks will be available for purchase. Parking fees will be waived that day at the running complex lot and at the lot for the land bridge and prairie.