Chip Trageser, Managing Principal at OJB in Houston, speaks with Cara Smith at the Houston Business Journal about Levy Park’s transformation. Since 2011, OJB has been working with Houston-based developer Midway on a mixed-use project in the Upper Kirby District, and they wanted that development centered around a green space. OJB’s initial conceptual designs built excitement with the district and the park came to life. Five years later, the new and reimagined Levy Park will make its official debut with a grand opening on February 25.

Read more at the Houston Business Journal

Reporter Cara Smith ran a follow-up story two days later delving further into the Park’s background and how the redesign came to fruition, again citing OJB and quoting Chip. With regard to the Park’s grounds being leased to the developer by the City of Houston, Chip cites the unique relationship.

Key excerpt:

“I think it’s ingenious,” said Chip Trageser, managing principal at the Houston-based landscape architecture firm The Office of James Burnett. “It’s pretty new ground. I’m not aware of a ground-lease situation with (another) park. “The Office of James Burnett, or OJB, designed the park’s new landscape. OJB was approached by Midway in 2011 and began work on the park’s conceptual designs. Trageser compared Levy Park to Discovery Green and Klyde Warren Park in Dallas (which The Office of James Burnett designed) in that the park will offer free programming to the public and be a destination for city dwellers in and out of the Loop. “That is, by itself, huge,” Trageser said.

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