Coffee was being brought into Houston from Central America. "Sunset Coffee was one of the brands it manufactured. "It was built in 1910," says Houston architectural historian Stephen Fox. The lawns are neatly kept, there are trees and tables and wide walks, and it's on the water's edge.īut on one side vagrants sleep in the shade of Main Street Bridge and on the other side looms the hulking shell of the International Coffee Company Building.Įven its protectors call it "the ugly green building." Yet tiny Allen's Landing Park, the spot the Partnership calls "Houston's Plymouth Rock," remains less than inviting. "Four-and-a-half-billion dollars have been spent over the last 10 years of public and private investment in downtown."
"Downtown has been transformed in the last 10 years with light rail and Discovery Park and major efforts by Buffalo Bayou Coalition (now Partnership) and landscaping of the roads," says Stephen Klineberg, Rice sociology professor and director of the annual Houston Area Survey. 10 years of changeĪ great effort has been made to turn Houston's urban center into a more vital, attractive environment and destination. It's all part of Buffalo Bayou Partnership's master plan, Buffalo Bayou and Beyond, a 20-year vision now in its fifth year. The park could become either a starting place for excursions by foot, wheel or water, or a destination for paddlers to share food and drink. Olson estimates completion of the project by fall 2009. The partnership hired the prestigious San Antonio firm Lake/Flato architects to design the space. In the spring, it will launch a $3 million rehabilitation of the 97-year-old International Coffee Company Building adjacent to Allen's Landing, turning it into a site bike, canoe and kayak rentals, dining and other activities. Noble efforts have been made, but attracting Houstonians to the downtown waterway has been sidetracked by, at different times, pollution, floods, lack of funds, apathy, area blight, wrong approaches, homeless campers - you name it.īuffalo Bayou Partnership is confident the dream will soon become reality. Turning Allen's Landing on Buffalo Bayou, where Houston began 171 years ago this week, into an active water and lawn amenity has long been a dream of city boosters. I'm always amazed that people don't know where Allen's Landing is." "It's Houston's greatest natural amenity.
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