Destination area to border Terry Hershey Park

An aerial rendering of Republic Square, a development consisting of office, hotel and residential buildings with street-level restaurants and retailers. It will border Terry Hershey Park.An aerial rendering of Republic Square, a development consisting of office, hotel and residential buildings with street-level restaurants and retailers. It will border Terry Hershey Park. less An aerial rendering of Republic Square, a development consisting of office, hotel and residential buildings with street-level restaurants and retailers. It will border Terry Hershey Park.An aerial rendering of ... more Photo: Courtesy Photo: Courtesy Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Destination area to border Terry Hershey Park 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

The company behind a billion-dollar mixed-use development in the Energy Corridor District has bought into a plan to establish a central destination within the area.

The Energy Corridor, an improvement district that consists of more than 1,700 acres along both sides of Interstate 10 in west Houston, recently released its master plan.

It is a long-term mobility, development and ecological design wish list for the area that includes turning Harris County Precinct 3's Terry Hershey Park into a destination for recreation, arts and events.

At least one stakeholder in the area, PM Realty Group, is on board. The company revealed its plan May 28 to convert a 35-acre site next to the county park into Republic Square, a development featuring office, retail, restaurant, hotel and residential space.

Located between Interstate 10 and Memorial Drive, the property is the former site of ExxonMobil Chemical's headquarters, and PM Realty Group plans to incorporate a number of the Energy Corridor District's master plan guidelines to create a pedestrian-and-eco-friendly destination that could get more people to and from the Terry Hershey Park.

To do that, the developer is proposing to add to the area's publically accessible greenspace and connect streets and trails into the park.

"From the very beginning, because we are next door to this park, we felt it was extremely critical to take competitive advantage given the large amount of open space and the trail system there," said Dan Leverett, executive vice president and managing director of development of PM Realty Group.

Infrastructure construction will begin in the first quarter of 2016. The first buildings will begin in the third quarter of 2016 and the first phase will be complete the last quarter of 2017 or early 2018.

The development is to consist of office, hotel and residential buildings with street-level restaurants and retailers.

Republic Square will have two-full-service hotels with a connected conference space, more than 100,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, and approximately 800 multifamily residential units.

The southeastern corner of the former ExxonMobil property also includes greenspace featuring a pond that PM Realty will open for public use.

The Square, an outdoor venue for social events, concerts and other programming, also will be located in the heart of the development.

Plans are to fashion Republic Square into a walkable urban community, Leverett said.

Everything is to be arranged around a series of public spaces and a system of pathways and tree-lined streets that connect the development to the western edge of Terry Hershey Park.

Most people, Leverett said, would be able to walk between the park and Republic Square's destinations within five minutes.

That could be very beneficial to the approximately 9,000 employees who work a short distance away at the BP complex who would then be able to go through Republic Square to access the county park, said Alan Ward, a principal with urban planning and design firm Sasaki Associates Inc.

Sasaki Associates helped plan Republic Square alongside a team of architects, design consultants and landscape engineers working for PM Realty Group.

Sasaki Associates also had a hand in developing the Energy Corridor District's master plan.

Ward said the park and existing greenspace on the old ExxonMobil site wrap around what will become Republic Square.

"The idea is that you have all of these active uses that connect out into the park," he said. "We've designed it in a way so that the major square in the middle of Republic Square leads right out to the pond to the south, streets extend east-west into the park, so the park will pick up all of this circulation that extends right back into Republic Square."

Ward said Republic Square's design reinforces many elements of the district's master plan, which he said provides stakeholders like PM Realty a guideline for future development in the area.

"The new master plan is inspirational in terms of what the future could be in The Energy Corridor," said Mark Klein, who handles communications for the improvement district.

Design principals of the plan are aimed at making the corridor "an even more livable place in the future," he said, by embracing natural landscapes, building public spaces, developing complete streets that integrate transit services, and the encouragement of bicycle use. Aligned with the district's master plan, PM Realty Group is proposing to create several smaller open spaces within Republic Square, including some rooftop greenspaces for office-building employees to access. Republic Square's streets also are to be designed for dual use by automobiles and bicycles.

An expanded street network is another element the Energy Corridor District's master plan envisions is needed to create better accessibility throughout the area. PM Realty Group's street plans for its master-planned community include a north-south parkway to run from Memorial Drive to I-10 frontage road at the edge of Terry Hershey Park. The developer also is proposing to extend Grisby Street through Republic Square to the park.

More information

The improvement district's master plan is publicly accessible online at www.energycorridor.org, and officials with the improvement district have been marketing the plan to property and business owners, neighborhood leaders, Metro, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and others that have a stake in the area.