Memorial Park's Living Bridge Open for Pedestrians

This news from various sources, including the Memorial Park Conservancy website (http://www.memorialparkconservancy.org/)

Memorial Park’s new $4 million pedestrian bridge officially opened last week, but it won’t reach its full, glorious potential for at least a few years. Designed by Clark Condon Associates, the bridge is a “living bridge,” seeded today to bloom tomorrow. The leafy new amenity linking the urban park’s northern and southern segments opened Tuesday following a ribbon-cutting at 10:30 a.m., hosted by Memorial Park Conservancy (MPC)and the city’s Parks and Recreation Department.

Frequent park users and pass-through motorists will know that the bridge — which sweeps attractively across Memorial Drive next to the existing, at-grade railroad crossing, west of the main park area — already has some plants and shrubs along the trail. In a few years, those will be nearing maturity, as will the currently invisible “planter pockets” along the walls of the bridge that will eventually sprout a variety of flowering vines in the spring and summer. The MPC will be continuing to add a series of native plantings that weave greenery into the structure for pedestrians to use across Memorial Drive. The concept for a living bridge is that after a few years, once those vines and the plants that line the bridge trail reach maturity, the bridge itself will become almost completely enveloped in foliage and will appear to be just another green pocket in Houston’s premier inner-city green space.

The bridge is only part of the $10 million capital campaign under way within Houston Parks and Recreation and the MPC. However, the bridge is the first piece to reach fruition. Mindy Hildebrand, the MPC's Capital Campaign chairwoman, joined forces with hundreds of contributors to raise more than $6.5 million toward Phase I improvements to the park.

Other intended improvements include:

Tennis Center Plaza Renovation ($80,000);

Outer Trail improvements ($2.1 million);

Running/Trails Center ($3 million);

Trail Lighting along the southeastern edge ($140,000);

Beautification of the retaining wall in the center of the park ($700,000).