Downtown Houston
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Downtown Houston is Houston's largest business district. In terms of office square footage, it is the seventh largest in the United States and has the third most concentrated skyline after New York City and Chicago.
Downtown Houston contains the headquarters of many prominent companies. Many people do not know this, but there is an extensive network of pedestrian tunnels and skywalks underground connecting the buildings of the district. The tunnel system is home to many fast food restaurants, shops and services.
Most of the residential units in downtown are conversions of older buildings into modern and luxurious loft spaces. A number are located around the performance halls of the theatre district and near Main Street in the Historic District. Downtown will be adding another 600 plus units in the next couple of years with the developments of Marvey Finger's Park Tower (high rise) and the Houston Pavilions' two midrise loft towers.
A noticeable trend is that Houston is becoming more "downtown-centric". The baseball, basketball, and hockey teams have moved into downtown facilities. January 1, 2004 marked the opening of the "new" Main Street, a plaza with many eateries, bars and nightclubs, which brings many visitors to a newly renovated locale. To complete the scene, Main Street Square offers dancing fountains throughout the day and offers a dramatic scene as one of the METRORail trains pass under. Along the Main Street corridor is the original Foley's department store which was transformed into Macy's on September 9.
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[edit] Architecture
In the 1960s, downtown comprised of a modest collection of mid-rise office structures, but has since grown into one of the largest skylines in the United States. In 1960, the central business district had 10 million square feet (1,000,000 m²) of office space, increasing to about 16 million square feet (1,600,000 m²) in 1970. Downtown Houston was on the threshold of a boom in 1970 with 8.7 million square feet (870,000 m²) of office space planned or under construction and huge projects being launched by real estate developers. The largest proposed development was the 32-block Houston Center. Only a small part of the original proposal was ultimately constructed. Other large projects included the Cullen Center, Allen Center, and towers for Shell Oil Company. The surge of skyscrapers mirrored the skyscraper booms in other cities, such as Los Angeles and Dallas. Houston experienced another downtown construction spurt in the 1970s with the energy industry boom.
The first major skyscraper to be constructed in Houston was the 50-floor, 714-foot-tall (218 m) One Shell Plaza in 1971. A succession of skyscrapers were built throughout the 1970s, culminating with Houston's tallest skyscraper, the 75-floor, 1,002-foot-tall (305 m) JPMorgan Chase Tower (formerly the Texas Commerce Tower), which was completed in 1982. In 2002, it was the tallest structure in Texas, ninth-tallest building in the United States and the 23rd tallest skyscraper in the world. In 1983, the 71-floor, 970-foot-tall (296 m) Wells Fargo Bank Plaza was completed, which became the second-tallest building in Houston and Texas, and 11th-tallest in the country. Skyscraper construction in downtown Houston came to an end in the mid-1980s with the collapse of Houston's energy industry and the resulting severe economic recession. When the 53-floor Texaco Heritage Plaza was completed in 1987, it appeared that no more skyscrapers would be constructed for a while. Twelve years later, the Houston-based Enron Corporation began construction of a 40-floor skyscraper in 1999 (which was completed in 2002)[1] with the company collapsing in one of the most dramatic corporate failures in the history of the United States only two years later. Other smaller office structures were built in the 2000–2003 period. As of December 2001, downtown Houston had about 40 million square feet (4,000,000 m²) of office space, including 28 million square feet (2,800,000 m²) of class A office space.
[edit] Notable buildings
Notable buildings that form Houston's downtown skyline:
- The Esperson Buildings, 'Neilson' built in 1927 and 'Mellie' in 1942, were modeled with Italian architecture.
- The Houston City Hall was started in 1938 and completed in 1939. The original building is an excellent example of the Art Deco Era. In front of City Hall is the George Hermann Square.
- Houston Public Library's Central Library, consisting of the Julia Ideson Building (1926) and the Jesse H. Jones Building (1976).
- The Houston Industries Building, formerly the 1100 Milam Building, was built in 1973 and renovated in 1996.
- Pennzoil Place, designed by Philip Johnson,built in 1976, is Houston most award winning skyscraper known for its innovative design. Johnson's forward thinking brought about a new era in skyscraper design.
- The First City Tower was built in 1981.
- The JPMorgan Chase Tower, designed by I.M. Pei built in 1981 and formerly the Texas Commerce Tower, is the tallest in Houston and the second tallest in the United States west of the Mississippi River. The Transco (now Williams) Tower in the Houston Galleria is often mistaken as the tallest in Houston when, in fact it is the third tallest in the metropolitan area.
- The Chevron Tower, formerly the Gulf Tower, was built in 1982.
- The Bank of America Center, formerly the RepublicBank Center and the NationsBank center, designed by Philip Johnson was built in 1983.
- The Enron Center North, also the Four Allen Center, was also built in 1983.
- The Wells Fargo Bank Plaza, formerly the Allied Bank Plaza and First Interstate Center, also built in 1983 is the second tallest building in the Houston Area.
- The Heritage Plaza was completed in 1987.
- The Enron Center South, also the Enron II, designed by Cesar Pelli was completed in 2002. (Note: Enron went bankrupt before the building's completion and was sold soon after it was completed for about half of its $200 million construction cost).
- The Hobby Center for Performing Arts was started in 2000 and completed in 2002.
- The Lyric Centre is filled with lawyers, but is named for its adjacency to the many performing arts venues in Houston's Theater District.
[edit] Other venues
Downtown Houston has two major league sports venues. Minute Maid Park (formerly Enron Field), which opened in 2000, is home to the MLB Astros and the Toyota Center home to the NBA Rockets, WNBA Comets, and AHL Aeros opened in 2003.
The Downtown Theater District is ranked second, only behind New York City, for the number of theater seats. Houston is one of only five cities in the United States with permanent professional resident companies in all of the major performing art disciplines of opera, ballet, music, and theater. Venues in the theater district include the Wortham Center (opera and ballet), the Alley Theater (theater), the Hobby Center (resident and traveling musical theater, concerts, events), the Verizon Wireless Theater (concerts and events) and Jones Hall (symphony).
The George R. Brown Convention Center, with its 1.2 million square feet of flexible exhibit, meeting and registration space and adjacent hotel, is frequently used for conventions, trade shows and community meetings.
In comparison to other major cities, Houston has relatively few hotel rooms downtown, partly because downtown Houston is not a large leisure travel market. Major hotels in downtown Houston are the Hilton Americas Convention Center Hotel with 1,203 rooms , the Four Seasons Houston Hotel and Residences, the Doubletree Hotel Downtown Houston and the Hyatt Regency Houston. Of note, the Hyatt Regency Houston has a revolving restaurant, the Spindletop, located on the hotel's 30th floor. In addition there are a number of upscale, boutique hotels in the CBD such as the Landcaster, Hotel Icon, Magnolia Hotel, Inn at the Ballpark and the Alden Hotel. There are approximately 5,000 hotel rooms in downtown Houston.
[edit] Retail and transportation
Downtown Houston is home to the flagship Macy's (former Foley's) Department Store (founded in 1900), which moved to its current location in 1947. In 2006 this store, along with all other Foley's stores, was renamed Macy's.
The Shops in Houston Center is an enclosed shopping mall. It houses ninety stores and the building itself straddles two city blocks.
Downtown Houston is served by five light rail stations on METRORail's Red Line. They are the Downtown Transit Center, Bell Station, Main Street Square Station, Preston Station, and University of Houston-Downtown Station.
Part of the shops and restaurants that make up Houston's central Chinatown extends into the CBD.
The Houston Pavilions is a major project recently announced for Downtown. This project comes from the same developers of the Denver Pavilions in Denver; spanning three square blocks, however, Houston Pavilions is said to be larger. [1]
Also, a new Downtown Park is currently underway, intended to be Houston's version of Millennium Park in Chicago. The park will have underground parking, an amphitheater, two resturants, a dog run, a jogging trail around the park, a great Lawn, an interactive fountain and more. The park has a website here.
[edit] Government
[edit] Federal and state representation
Downtown Houston is in Texas's 18th congressional district [2]. Its current Representative is Sheila Jackson Lee.
[edit] Parks
Discovery Green is slated to be completed in January 2008 [3].
[edit] Fire service
Houston Fire Department Station 8 Downtown in Downtown is under construction.
[edit] Police service
The neighborhood is within the Houston Police Department's Central Patrol Division [4].
[edit] Education
[edit] Colleges and universities
There is one school of higher learning located in Downtown Houston:
The University of Houston-Downtown is a diverse, open-enrollement teaching university located at One Main and is a member of the prestigious University of Houston System. The school currently has an enrollment of 12,000 traditional and non-traditional students from around the Houston Area.
[edit] Primary and secondary education
The grade-school children of Downtown are served by the Houston Independent School District.
Very few children live in Downtown; according to the 2000 U.S. census, there were only 550 inhabitants under the age of 18 in the Downtown Super Neighborhood, which also has a strip of land east of Downtown. Of those children, any well-off children usually attend either other public schools or attend independent schools.
Six elementary schools have zoning boundaries that extend to Downtown; they are:
- Bruce Elementary School
- Crawford Elementary School (as of 2006 there are no residential areas in Downtown zoned to Sherman)
- Crockett Elementary School
- Gregory-Lincoln Education Center (in the Fourth Ward)
- J. Will Jones Elementary School (in Midtown) (as of 2006 a Holiday Inn Express is the only area zoned to Jones in Downtown that has capacity to be residential)
- Sherman Elementary School (as of 2006 there are no residential areas in Downtown zoned to Sherman)
E.O. Smith Education Center (in the Fifth Ward) takes most of Downtown's students at the middle school level. Marshall Middle School (in Northside Village) takes students at the middle school level from a small section of northern Downtown.
Davis High School (in Northside Village) takes students from almost all of Downtown at the high school level. Reagan High School (in the Houston Heights) take students in the high school level from a small section of northwest Downtown.
The portion zoned to Bruce was zoned to Anson Jones Elementary School [5] until spring 2006, when Anson Jones closed its doors.
Foley's Academy [6] was formerly located inside the Foley's (now Macy's) in Downtown Houston.
Incarnate Word Academy, a Catholic all-girls' school founded in 1873, is the only high school actually located Downtown. The academy is operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. A nearby 4-8 school called the Holy Name School is north of Downtown [7].
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Downtown District
- Downtown Houston Alliance
- Downtown Houston Interactive Map
- Houston Theater District
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