The new blueprint includes a new 5-mile park encircling the city center. A proposed new downtown masterplan for Houston unveiled Friday includes new walkability guidelines, smart city technology, and a slate of transportation and parkway improvements aimed at rapidly expanding the city?s core.
Plan Downtown: Converging Culture, Lifestyle & Commerce, the result of a planning process overseen by the Downtown District, seeks to build 12,000 new residential units downtown, as well as accompanying transportation, commercial, and park infrastructure, to support a population of 30,000. Currently, 7,500 live in the city center. In an editorial, The Houston Chronicle said it?s ?a vision worth pursuing.?
One of the main features of the proposal is the Green Loop, a five-mile ring of parkland and bicycle corridors that would encircle the greater downtown area and connect it with emerging neighborhoods such as Midtown and Freedman's Town. The idea had already been proposed, but Plan Downtown helped to codify and integrate the park concept with other proposals in play, including a 24-mile, $7 billion highway realignment project underway by the Texas Department of Transportation.
?Houston?s downtown is already multimodal and very walkable,? says Bob Eury, Executive Director of the Downtown District. ?We want to improve that in a lot of places.?
The comprehensive development plan looks at the future of downtown Houston through 2036, the city?s bicentennial. Draf...