HOUSTON — The Land Bridge and Prairie project, soon to be one of Houston’s newest landmarks, is moving along a quick pace.
The Land Bridge, coming to Memorial Park in 2022, is the next major project of the Memorial Park Master Plan.
The Master Plan, expected to be completed by 2028, is a collaboration among Memorial Park Conservancy, Houston Parks and Recreation Department and Uptown Development Authority. It included input from 25 ecological scientists, and 50 additional informants ranging from storm water management experts to historians to Park stakeholder groups.
During a tour on Wednesday, Shellye Arnold, president & CEO of the Memorial Park Conservancy, and Randy Odinet, vice president of Capital Projects and Facilities, Memorial Park Conservancy, provided an update to the project.
“We are standing on top of a 100-acre project that will open in just a little over a year,” Arnold said.
Rolling hills made of dirt will soon be prairie land and paths that connects the north and south sides of Memorial Park. The park is currently divided by a busy Memorial Drive.
“It will be great for runners, it will be great for cyclists, it will be great for moms pushing their strollers," Arnold said.
There’s also a practical side. Arnold said by restoring nearly 45 acres of native coastal prairie land, flooding should be mitigated.
“That’s the ecology that handles stormwater best. It absorbs stormwater down into its 8-to-12-foot root system," Arnold said.
Under that green space will be a whole lot of Houston traffic. It will cover two, three-lane traffic tunnels scheduled to be open by early 2022.
There’s also a wildlife tunnel which provides a safe place for critters to cross, and doubles as a water culvert.
The project is set to be complete by the end of 2022.
“It will be simply fun. It will be simply beautiful. But it’s distinctive," Arnold said. "This will help put Houston on a map more than it is today for green winning over gray.”
“There is nothing like it that we have identified, our engineers and our designers, have identified that exists in the world," Arnold said.