Main Street to get another sprucing up
City works to look like a champion as host to major sports events
The Downtown Redevelopment Authority unveils a $12.1 million capitalimprovement plan for Main Street that includes new landscaping and lighting, plus a series of vibrant art installations.
The sports fans are coming, so it must be time to spruce up Main Street.
The Downtown Redevelopment Authority on Tuesday announced a $12.1 million capitalimprovement plan for Main Street that includes new landscaping and lighting, plus a series of vibrant art installations along a 19-block stretch that’s experiencing an ongoing transformation. The group says the upgrades largely will be completed in time for the NCAA Final Four tournament next spring and the Super Bowl in 2017, which are expected to put Houston back in the “national and international spotlight.”
The last big Main Street makeover was spurred by the 2004 Super Bowl, which Houston also hosted.
“This gives us an opportunity to be the best
hosts we can be, and part of that is providing a warm and welcoming environment that showcases our innovation, creativity and spirit,” said Bob Eury, president of the downtown authority. “The planned improvements to Main Street are aimed at exactly this, and will create spaces that not only guests, but Houstonians, can use and enjoy long into the future.”
The plan also includes new sidewalk finishes and drainage improvements.
But the grander aspects include an art installation plan dubbed the “Art Blocks.”
The Downtown District will curate public art and a campaign to bring permanent and temporary art installations along corners of Main Street. The installations will begin in February with four semi-permanent and temporary public art projects and several pop-up installations.
‘Active space’
“We want it to be an active space,” said Angie Bertinot with the Downtown Redevelopment Authority. “We wanted to bring life to the space. … We thought, ‘How can this area be a destination, how can it be a benefit to the neighborhood and a wonderful place for visitors?’ The first place was art. ”
The challenge with downtown was creating vertical pieces of art that would activate the space, said Lea Weingarten, principal of the Weingarten Art Group, which contracts art project for public spaces and worked with the downtown group on this project.
Artists and designers involved in the first wave of art installations are Jessica Stockholder of the University of Chicago, New Yorkbased collective YesYesNo and Houston’s own Patrick Renner, known for his installation “FunnelTunnel” along Montrose Boulevard.
“People expect to be enticed by things intriguing, new and changing. Public art is part of that,” Weingarten said. “It’s an elegant, colorful way to activate space. It won’t be static and will change over time.”
In addition to the art, sidewalks will be repaved in granite or brick from the Market Square Historic District to the southern side of downtown. New trees and raised planters will dot the street from Commerce to Pierce.
Main Street Square, the pedestrian plaza between Walker and Dallas, will see the most noticeable improvements with new planters with granite edging and seasonal plants, new lights and a B-Cycle station.
The plan will also create stainless steel water foundations at the 900 and 1200 blocks of Main and widen the sidewalk at the 1100 block.
Eleven years ago, Metro’s Red Line and the improvements to Main Street were completed a month before Super Bowl XXXVIII brought tens of thousands of local and out-oftown partiers alike to the suddenly bustling business district. The downtown authority wants to build on that earlier work.
Before the 2004 improvements, sidewalks were concrete and narrow, landscaping was minimal and the lights were subpar. The street was wider and heavily used by buses before it was reconstructed for the light-rail line’s debut. Eury said the rail line and accompanying improvements — such as better sidewalks and lighting and fountain installations — helped downtown grow.
The new Main Street Corridor project should be completed by late spring.
Residents and retail
It comes at a time of significant investment in residential and office towers along Main itself. The street is one of the few in downtown that has mixeduse projects with groundfloor retail already in place, plus architecture that ranges from contemporary to historic.
Bill Fulton, director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University, called the stretch of Main, with its criss-crossing Metro lines, an interesting part of downtown.
“It’s really a transit hub. You’ve got the transit, but you don’t have the hub,” Fulton said. “At this point, any way, every rail line in the city goes to that location. It’s one of the most transit-rich places in the city. … To improve the urban design there, particularly with big events coming, could make a big difference.”