Buffalo Bayou’s long-envisioned expansion is officially underway due in part to a sizable donation of $100 million by the Kinder Foundation.
Over the course of the next 10 years, expect to see radical development along the 4-mile area between US 59 to the Port of Houston Turning Basin. Here, the Buffalo Bayou Partnership (BBP) have set their sites for their eastern expansion – a project that will see the creation of new parks, housing, trails, cultural hot spots, and infrastructure improvements.
Two years in the making, the Buffalo Bayou East Master Plan drew on considerable input from key area communities and residents, Greater East End and Fifth Ward stakeholders, and neighborhood groups when developing its goals.
Its key objectives are listed as such:
- Preserve Buffalo Bayou East neighborhoods’ cultures and traditions
- Repurpose the area’s industrial relics and showcase its ongoing industrial activity
- Extend the neighborhood fabric to the bayou and create a public waterfront edge open to all
- Leverage Buffalo Bayou Partnership-owned and publicly held properties for open space development
- Create a diverse network of parks and destinations with wide appeal
- Develop trails, greenways, and pedestrian-friendly neighborhood streets to connect the bayou to the city’s bike and pedestrian networks
- Develop an economically integrated, bayou-facing neighborhood
- Create a safe and resilient waterfront to support an ecologically rich habitat connected to the wider open space system
Now, the plan will be realized thanks to a quite generous donation from the Kinder Foundation:
“This transformational gift represents approximately one-third of the $310 million total private and public investment needed to deliver key parks, trails, housing, cultural destinations, and infrastructure improvements to the Greater East End and Fifth Ward communities over the next 10 years,” Buffalo Bayou wrote in an Instagram post.
“We are honored that the Kinder Foundation is entrusting our organization to steward this extraordinary gift and grateful to the foundation as well as the City of Houston (@houston) and Harris County for joining together with us to make the communities’ vision a reality. To read the entire press release and to learn more about the 2019 Buffalo Bayou East Master Plan, visit buffalobayou.org.”