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The Herons Kingwood Marina: 300-Acre Master Planned Mixed-Use Development


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1 hour ago, Mr.Clean19 said:

This would be amazing but there are really only 2 places for a 200 acre development like this in Houston. East River or this place. 


There's UT's acreage south of the south loop too  

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13 hours ago, AREJAY said:


There's UT's acreage south of the south loop too  

 

I think the idea being 200 acres on a natural(ish) waterway.   It would be interesting to hear more of the sales pitch, presuming that no one would go through the trouble that these folks have already gone through just to make some fancy renderings.  

 

My guess is that it goes something like this:

 

  • Waterfront development is cool
  • Houston is expected to continue to grow
  • 59N isn't that bad, and its close to the airport. 
  • The Woodlands is full, and this would cost 60% of what it would up there if it had the room. 

My equally bonkers counterproposal would be to create a massive flood control reservoir in the San Jacinto West Fork/Spring Creek/Cypress Creek basin and sell the surrounding waterfront property to people that build stuff like this. Call it Lake Harvey. 

 

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34 minutes ago, wilcal said:

 

I reverse commute to Humble and I can assure you it's the best highway in Houston :D

Because we can't have nice things, they are replacing the bridge over San Jacinto, so there's new traffic for those continuing past Humble

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On 5/1/2018 at 5:48 PM, AREJAY said:

 

 

http://www.torrisi-procopio.com/projects/marina-district-houston-2018.html

 

 

Wow, that’s impressive! Although, this reminds me of one of those massive Chinese mega-city developments that only end up with 97% vacancy. 

 

I hope this gets developed sooner or later...more than likely later.

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On 5/1/2018 at 8:36 PM, hindesky said:

I would bet that the FAA would have some concerns about the height of those buildings since they would be in the flight path of IAH's east/west runways.

 

I don't think the flight path is anywhere near this location. I live about 5 miles south of this and the planes go right over my house.

 

That being said, I'll be shocked if anything like these renderings happens.

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  • 2 months later...
1 minute ago, Mr.Clean19 said:

Never saw the video on this. Also, no news since May. Anyone know if this is going anywhere?

 

If this does ever happen, it's probably at least 4-5 years away from starting.

 

I've been wrong many times before, but my gut tells me that this will probably never happen. If it does, it will be something far more underwhelming, as in something that looks very different from these initial renderings.

 

I hope I'm wrong.

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  • 4 months later...

I can't find the link any more, so maybe it's just smoke, but there seems to be persistent interest in this idea. I remembered seeing something recently about a public comment period/conference, but can't find anything online. 

 

A recent bump of the posts on kingwood.com and a random comment on the old Swamplot post corroborate that other people are hearing about it again as well. 

 

Still astonished it's not completely dead, but would love to see it. 

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54 minutes ago, cspwal said:

There's a Kingwood TIRZ?

 

https://www.houstontx.gov/ecodev/tirz/10.html

 

It's an old one actually. They are spearheading an expansion of Northpark Drive right now, and just got an extension on the life of the TIRZ to borrow the money to pay for it. 

 

The TLDR of the Herons portion of the meeting is that everyone that lives anywhere near the area doesn't want it (insert shocked pikachu). TIRZ is authorizing up to $100,000 in funds for a drainage study for the greater Kingwood area to help the county/city spend the flood/drainage bond in the area, and one of the nearby HOAs wants to use that info against the Herons.

 

Right now, the Herons is not in the city permitting process, but with the federal government/Army Corps of Engineers. Councilmember Martins office encouraged feedback to go to national legislators Crenshaw/Cornyn/Cruz as they don't have any effect on the process at this moment.  

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1 hour ago, wilcal said:

 

https://www.houstontx.gov/ecodev/tirz/10.html

 

It's an old one actually. They are spearheading an expansion of Northpark Drive right now, and just got an extension on the life of the TIRZ to borrow the money to pay for it. 

 

The TLDR of the Herons portion of the meeting is that everyone that lives anywhere near the area doesn't want it (insert shocked pikachu). TIRZ is authorizing up to $100,000 in funds for a drainage study for the greater Kingwood area to help the county/city spend the flood/drainage bond in the area, and one of the nearby HOAs wants to use that info against the Herons.

 

Right now, the Herons is not in the city permitting process, but with the federal government/Army Corps of Engineers. Councilmember Martins office encouraged feedback to go to national legislators Crenshaw/Cornyn/Cruz as they don't have any effect on the process at this moment.  

 

It's currently something of a dead end (literal, as-in no through traffic) area, not surprised at all about the knee jerk reaction against it for those nearby, but this thing would change so much in the area, it's not going to end up like anything anyone can predict if it got built. Kingwood is built out under its original theme, this would be a big step-out that I think would be worth it. 

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Still like the project, but I could see why they would need to have meetings with the Army Corps of Engineers/Feds if you look at the image below:

 

ORP0WRY.jpg?1

 

The ENTIRE project area is inside the 100 year floodplain. The Marina portion it self is in the floodplain out right. The strip subdivision in between is in the 500 year floodplain. If they want to even make that area even close to buildable they would have to either start levee-ing the river or do some ridiculous build up to get out of the floodway. This area of Kingwood was also heavily hit during Harvey.

 

Link to the Harris County Floodmap resource:

 

http://www.harriscountyfemt.org/

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10 minutes ago, Luminare said:

Still like the project, but I could see why they would need to have meetings with the Army Corps of Engineers/Feds if you look at the image below:

 

The ENTIRE project area is inside the 100 year floodplain. The Marina portion it self is in the floodplain out right. The strip subdivision in between is in the 500 year floodplain. If they want to even make that area even close to buildable they would have to either start levee-ing the river or do some ridiculous build up to get out of the floodway. This area of Kingwood was also heavily hit during Harvey.

 

Link to the Harris County Floodmap resource:

 

http://www.harriscountyfemt.org/

5

 

Yep, mentions of needing to fill in hundreds of acres of wetlands to do the project at the meeting. 

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1 hour ago, EllenOlenska said:

I know next to nothing about this project except that it should be reshaped and put in midtown. 

A marina in midtown would be easy - 288 already brings in water for the boats every rain, so all they need is some docks

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Some of the building on the floodplain looks to be offset by digging out detention/waterway where none exists currently. I don't pretend to know what is displaced or would be necessary/legal, but clearly everything of value here would need to be built way up from current grade.   I guess it's floodplain either way, but what is/was wetland probably changed in the area with the Lake Houston dam's construction in the 50's.  

 

Interestingly, there is a massive sandbar that built up through Harvey that inhibits drainage severely. One read of this implies that they would have to re-engineer the whole waterway around here, which could sound really good to the CoE. 

 

Still very skeptical, but it's an interesting idea to kick around. 

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2 hours ago, Nate99 said:

Some of the building on the floodplain looks to be offset by digging out detention/waterway where none exists currently. I don't pretend to know what is displaced or would be necessary/legal, but clearly everything of value here would need to be built way up from current grade.   I guess it's floodplain either way, but what is/was wetland probably changed in the area with the Lake Houston dam's construction in the 50's.  

 

Interestingly, there is a massive sandbar that built up through Harvey that inhibits drainage severely. One read of this implies that they would have to re-engineer the whole waterway around here, which could sound really good to the CoE. 

 

Still very skeptical, but it's an interesting idea to kick around. 

 

If COH was smart then they would halt all future development near the waterway until something could be done to future proof flooding. This area needs a serious system of levees and water detention schemes. The watershed is just too erratic and its only going to get worse from here on out. I say this because this area actually has a lot of potential. Its one of the more interesting ecological areas of the Greater Houston Area, but if they want that growth to last then they must prepare for the future.

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