Memorial Park Land Bridge and Prairie – If we build it, will they come? [virtual]

In 2011, Houston suffered a terrible drought and its beloved 1500 acre urban wilderness, Memorial Park, lost more than 70% of its tree canopy. With 55,000 Houstonians commuting through the park daily, the impact on the community was devastating and Memorial Park Conservancy knew that something needed to be done. In 2013, Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects was selected to lead a master planning effort to restore and re-envision the park. Their award winning master plan was completed in 2015 and called for a massive land bridge to span the six lanes of traffic that had divided the park in half for the last 60 years.

What began as a project with a clear and compelling concept evolved into much into a much more complex and dynamic set of issues. The project has become less a singular “crossing” over a roadway, and more of a nexus of multifaceted systems – both cultural and natural - that had to be holistically conceived as part of a greater vision for the park. Challenges ranging from securing funds, to managing watersheds and sourcing wild-collected seed for a 50 acre prairie system have been faced. Finding solutions to these and other challenges involved extensive coordinated effort across professional disciplines and regulatory agencies.

We will share highlights of the opportunities and challenges we have encountered so far as well as those still facing us in the final eight months of the project in the hope that this project can serve as a case study for how infrastructure and amenities can be successfully integrated.

At a combined private and public investment in excess of $200 million, we do believe that after we build it – people, animals and plants – will all come.