Houston,  Texas

This award-winning Memorial Park Central Connector project is located in Houston, Texas.  

Memorial Park is Houston’s largest green asset inside the city at 1,500 acres. The park serves 4 million users each year and draws residents from 170 ZIP codes across Greater Houston. Thousands of visitors use the park’s signature exercise trail daily, and countless others enjoy its highly regarded 18-hole public golf course, tennis, swimming, cycling, 30 miles of trails, bird watching, and fitness facilities.

The Memorial Park Master Plan was unanimously approved by Houston City Council. The Master Plan seeks to restore, reconnect, and enhance the overall park experience and its amenities. The proposed Central Connector is a key component of the Memorial Park Master Plan. Houston’s premier Memorial Park is bisected by Memorial Drive.

To provide for greater connectivity of the park’s amenities, the Memorial Park Master Plan proposed the construction of a land bridge over Memorial Drive. Uptown Development Authority (UDA) in association with the Memorial Park Conservancy is advancing this proposed connection toward reality. 

Ardurra, along with renowned landscape architect Nelson Byrd Woltz and ARUP Texas, are providing the leadership to deliver this unique project. Ardurra serves as the Lead Engineer with responsibility for the roadway design, drainage design, traffic analysis and design, and the civil design for the parking lots and park trails and coordinating all specialty engineering for structural and utility design. Ardurra also manages the project document management and quality management programs.

Now complete, the Central Connector does not only provide connectivity, but is naturally landscaped as a Texas prairie.