A five-acre rooftop park with organic farm is part of the mixed-use plans for Post Houston, Lovett Commercial’s adaptive redevelopment of a former post office in downtown Houston.
Courtesy of Lovett Commercial
Until its closing in 2009, the massive post office complex in downtown Houston saved many a stressed taxpayer who dashed in at the last minute on April 15 to snag a qualifying postmark.
Going forward, it will be re-adapted and redeveloped as Post Houston, a center of commerce and culture, a mix of arts, entertainment and creative working spaces.
Lovett Commercial, based in Houston, holds a groundbreaking today on the project’s long-awaited start — and form. The design narrative calls for a “strategic, almost surgical intervention” for the 550,000-square-feet of space, now headed for active use as a hub with dining, retail, concert venue and international market hall.
Its sizable rooftop, meanwhile, is becoming a five-acre park — with organic farm. Dubbed “Skylawn,” the expanse takes in an unobstructed view of the city’s skyline. Culinary tenants will be able to source ingredients for what is described in project materials as a “rooftop-to-tableop” experience.
Construction is expected to take a year, project sources said.
Built in 1962 where the Southern Pacific Railroad’s grand central station once operated, the former Barbara Jordan Post Office property occupies a 16-acre site on the northwest edge of downtown, just across Buffalo Bayou from the theater district. Its two-story warehouse sprawls beside and behind the five-story admin building, a cast concrete modern structure with the window-shading fins of that era. The latter building is not included in the current project at this time.
Frank Liu, Lovett’s president, has said the company is determined to “create a one-of-a-kind urban ecosystem” that will showcase the city’s vibrancy.
An expansive skylight and monolithic staircase open up and connect three levels and purposes within an atrium created (one of three) in the former postal warehouse at Post Houston as part of the adaptive reuse and redevelopment project by Lovett
Courtesy of Lovett Commercial
The design, by architecture firm OMA and partner Jason Long in collaboration with Houston-based Powers Brown Architecture, punctuates the complex’s super-sized and sprawling warehouse section. Large-scale skylights over a trio of three-story atrium will define a flow of spaces for designated purposes: food, entertainment and creative work spaces. Monumental staircases lead to the upper floors and roof features, with landscapes designed by Hoerr Schaudt of Chicago.
Unusual and unused
“The former Barbara Jordan Post office provided an incredible opportunity to transform a building defined by the generosity of its spaces and proportions into a major public amenity,” OMA’s Long said in an email. “Many cities are finding homes for new public programs and uses within their industrial infrastructure — from derelict waterfronts to Sears distribution centers — and finding out that the existing ‘unused’ structures offer something that newer buildings rarely do.”
Houston’s growth is on track to become the third largest city in the nation, he said, but noted its “complexity and status as a cultural center is less well known outside of the region. We think that Post Houston’s vast, open public spaces and multifaceted programs will amplify the incredibly diverse food, arts and commercial culture that the city has to offer.”
Lovett’s Kirby Liu, project manager, said Post Houston “serves as a model for large-scale urban adaptive reuse, especially in light of the U.S. Postal Service’s sale of its (central business district) headquarters in major metropolitan areas, such as Chicago, New York City, Portland and Minneapolis.”
The project value, he said, “has not been fully determined due to multiple tenant agreements being negotiated.”
A residential component is not part of the mix, he said, because it is a landmark historic building and the project incorporates state and federal tax credits: “We were restricted from making large façade modifications which would have made it impossible to place residential units in the existing building.”
Instead, the company has plans to collaborate with other developers and explore the possibility of future residential complexes “in the medium term.”
Liu said the project “serves as a model for large scale urban adaptive reuse, especially in light of the U.S. Postal Service’s sale of its central business district headquarters in major metropolitan areas, such as Chicago, New York City, Portland and Minneapolis.”
Lovett acquired the property in 2015, which had been on the market several years.
At Preservation Houston, an advocacy organization, Executive Director David Bush said this property and project have been on the organization’s radar. “It would have been very easy to lose the post office,” he said in an email. “These buildings are an age when they’re typically threatened. There are a lot of them, they don’t look modern anymore and they aren’t what most people think of as historic.
“So we’ve got two challenges: Helping people understand that buildings from this era are architecturally and historically significant. And getting owners and investors to look at historic preservation as a viable alternative to Houston’s typical scrape and rebuild history of development.”