What is the Hermann Park Master Plan?
Over the past 30 years, the Hermann Park Conservancy has worked with leading national landscape architects and planners, conducting extensive community outreach at every step, to develop a visionary Master Plan for the park.
Houston’s City Council approved the initial Master Plan in 2016; the Plan has continued to evolve over several phases. The extraordinary improvements to Hermann Park that visitors enjoy are the result of implementation of this Plan in a responsible, sustainable, and inclusive way.
More information about the Master Plan is available on the Conservancy‘s website.
Does the Master Plan include the 8.9 threatened acres?
Yes. In 2016, after two years of work with a national urban planning firm, the Hermann Park Conservancy updated its 1995 Park Master Plan. The first completed project from this phase was the glorious Commons, with its acres of native plantings, new picnic areas, and imaginative playgrounds, which opened in 2024.
Another key feature of the current plan is Bayou Parkland West (the site that Harris Health is working to condemn). The Conservancy has invested $500,000 in further developing the details of this site, including engineering, traffic, and design studies.
The plan includes gardens, a Sensory Grove, a pond bordered by a walkway, trails and running tracks, a sloped lawn, seating areas, a wide bridge over Cambridge Street to provide safe crossing for pedestrians and cyclists, and a much-needed parking structure with green space on top.
Why does a “green garage” at this location benefit Houston residents and the Medical Center?
The Hermann Park Conservancy and Houstonians agree that the park’s biggest problem is lack of adequate parking and the resulting traffic congestion. Unfortunately, most parking spaces are located in the park’s center. Over the past thirty years, multiple mobility studies, including the 1995 and 2016 master plans, have recommended moving parking to the outer edges of the park so that visitors may reach them more easily, from multiple entry points.
Because half of all park visitors come from 288 / MacGregor, the Bayou Parkland West site is ideal for intercepting cars before they turn onto Cambridge and then Main, significantly reducing traffic congestion for the Park, Ben Taub Hospital, and the entire Medical Center.
Completion of the garage will also enable the Hermann Park Conservancy to convert the 19 acres of paved parking by the Zoo, equivalent to two Discovery Greens, into green space – a major win for Houston residents.
Is there an alternative location for the planned green garage?
No. If Houstonians lose this parkland, we all lose the best, most accessible solution to Hermann Park’s traffic and parking problem.
Rendering of Bayou Parkland West’s Central Pond