Houston's East End is in the midst of a renaissance, as evidenced by booming residential development, new restaurants and retail, and quality-of-life initiatives such as hiking and bike trials in near downtown such as the East Downtown Trail.

This East End renaissance, to that end, goes hand in hand with Buffalo Bayou. Now, an ambitious master plan is closer to being realized, thanks to a game-changing new gift from Houston's biggest benefactors, Rich and Nancy Kinder, who've just donated $100 million to its completion.

Just days off a $50 million donation to their eponymous Rice University Kinder Institute, the Kinders have gifted a colossal $100 million to help expand Buffalo Bayou Park eastward, as part of the ambitious Buffalo Bayou East Master Plan.

A historic gift

The Kinders' $100 million will help Buffalo Bayou Partnership leverage the additional $210 million of public and private investments it will require to realize the first 10 years of the Buffalo Bayou East Master Plan, per the organization.

Plans call for new bayou parks, trails, housing, cultural destinations, and infrastructure improvements into the Greater East End and Fifth Ward neighborhoods. The plan moves to consideration at Harris County Commissioners Court and Houston City Council on Tuesday, September 27 and Wednesday, September 28, respectively, according to a Buffalo Bayou Park Partnership (BBP) press release.

By the numbers, the Kinder Foundation’s $100 million gift is the largest single donation in Houston parks history. The gift, combined with approximately $37 million already raised by BBP, helped secure $83.5 million of public funds from the City of Houston; $24 million from Harris County; and $14 million in federal housing tax credits. Civic leaders such as Mayor Sylvester Turner, Commissioner Adrian Garcia, and Commissioner Rodney Ellis have been vocal in their support.

BBP adds in press materials that it will continue to raise the remaining $46 million in private funds needed to complete the 10-Year Plan by 2031.

Parks, waterfront fun, and more

With a push for green spaces for all residents, the Buffalo Bayou East Master Plan envisions new and improved waterfront trails, expanded and enhanced parks and open spaces, new bridges and boat landings, the transformation of existing industrial relics into community event spaces, a mixed-income housing project, and infrastructure enhancements.

Visitors can expect trails and bridges, community waterfront gathering spaces, a sweeping gateway, and more.

Tony Marron Park, a 19-acre City of Houston park on the south bank of Buffalo Bayou, will be expanded into nearly 40 acres and will include improved sports fields, a boat launch, an expansive nature play area, wildflower meadows, bayou lawns, a barbecue plaza, and spaces for community events.

Japhet Creek, a tributary stretching into the Fifth Ward, will see improved trails, interpretive signage, site furnishings, and wildflower and native grass plantings. Two new pedestrian bridges will link Fifth Ward to the trail system.

In an adaptive reuse initiative, a former barge terminal on a historic oxbow known as Turkey Bend, will become a waterfront recreational and cultural hub. Its large wharf, large, covered warehouse, and 50,000-square-foot building will host performances, public art, and boating activities.

Linking the city

Civically, the plan will reunite the Greater East End and Fifth Ward neighborhoods, which have been long separated from the bayou and each other. More connections to Houston’s regional trail network are also in store.

“Buffalo Bayou Partnership is honored that the Kinder Foundation is entrusting our organization to steward this extraordinary gift,” said Anne Olson, Buffalo Bayou Partnership president. “This plan is not only about parks and trails — it is a comprehensive community development plan for a part of town that has not seen this level of investment before. The cultural destinations, infrastructure improvements, and connectivity in Buffalo Bayou East came directly from the input we received from the East End and Fifth Ward communities. We are grateful to the Kinder Foundation as well as the City and County for joining together with us to make the communities’ vision a reality.”

Rich Kinder, Kinder Foundation chairman, responded in a statement: “There is a rich history and a valued culture along Buffalo Bayou east of downtown, and Buffalo Bayou Partnership is to be commended on the decades spent in the community laying the groundwork for this plan. The 10-Year Plan is in good hands under the direction of Buffalo Bayou Partnership.”

For those keeping score: The Kinders have broken their own record with this new gift. In 2018, as CultureMap reported, the Kinders gifted the largest amount ever to a Houston Park (at the time) with the $70 million infusion to the Memorial Park Master Plan.

Rendering courtesy of MVVA

The sweeping downtown gateway in the new plan.

Last week marked the beginning of fall. It was 103 ridiculous degrees in my backyard. Record highs were threatened and broken all week in Houston.

I watched one local weather forecaster say that Sunday, September 25 would be the last really hot day this year, and cooler autumn temperatures would start on Monday, September 26.

His predicted high temperature for Monday: 94 degrees. I wondered, are you listening to yourself?

Enough already with the heat. So I put Channel 2’s chief meteorologist Frank Billingsley on the hot seat for some appropriate grilling. (Editor's note: Check out our article on Billingsley's Galveston beach home for sale here.)

CultureMap: I'm a warm weather person. It's one reason I moved to Houston in the first place. But lately it's become an oven. Is all this hot weather a bad deal?

Frank Billingsley: It's bad because it reaffirms that we are on a warming trajectory that we've been on for a couple of decades. Weather is all about temperature, water and air. We don't ever balance out the extreme heat and the extreme weather that goes with it.

So, get used to more tornado outbreaks across the U.S., more extreme cold in winter, and heat in summer, stronger hurricanes, and more of those 500-year floods that seem to happen every year.

CM: Does the extreme heat affect plant and crops' growing cycles?

FB: I'm no farmer, but I've read that one advantage of the heat is that growing seasons are actually longer, which may be a good thing. However, farmers are having to deal with drought on one hand and flooding on the other.

CM. Does the heat affect human mood?

FB: I think relentless heat makes us a little snappier than pleasant weather.

CM: Does it affect the economy?

FB: With extreme weather comes extreme damage which costs more than ever to rebuild and recover.

CM: Does it have an effect on our personal health?

FB: Just last week, we had two days of ozone levels that were unhealthy for everyone. I hadn't seen that in a long while. But hot, clear, calm weather conditions set the stage for ozone to form. Ozone is hard on the upper respiratory system. That's just one example.

Certainly heat stroke and heat exhaustion can be dangerous, and there is always that horrible case of a child left in a hot car. I also heard of several dogs that died this summer in the heat.

CM: Historically, how certain has the Cone of Uncertainty been?

FB: Two-thirds of hurricanes end up in the Cone of Uncertainty. One of my bosses used to call the Cone of Uncertainty the "Cone of Overtime" because if we were in that cone it meant a lot of photographers were going to earn a ton of overtime!

CM: When a hurricane is approaching, which do you trust more, the American model or the European model?

FB: In my experience, the American model has done better with forecasting storms and their eventual track. But, they usually catch up to each other by landfall and are in pretty good agreement.

The European model made the headlines because in 2012 it was the first to forecast Hurricane Sandy curving back to the U.S., while the American model had the storm going northeast into the Atlantic.

But that was 10 years ago. We have new American supercomputers and are pretty darn great.

Photo by Getty Images

What happened to this 'fall weather' we were promised, anyway.