The Hiram Clarke/Fort Bend Redevelopment Authority is receiving more than $3 million in new funding to move forward on three projects already underway in our communities, thanks to support from Harris County Precinct One and Commissioner Rodney Ellis’s Plan Together Partnerships Program.
The announcement came at Willow Waterhole Greenway, a stormwater detention complex that doubles as a public park and trail network in southwest Houston. The setting was a fitting one. Of the sixteen projects funded through the program, we are receiving support for three, and each one is about closing a gap between where people live and the places they want to reach.
The largest share of our funding will go toward a pedestrian and bicycle bridge over US 90A, between Chimney Rock and South Post Oak. We are using this funding to connect a neighborhood that is currently cut off by the highway directly to the Willow Waterhole Greenway. Right now, that stretch of road functions like a wall. People who live just minutes away cannot safely get here. This bridge changes that, giving residents a real way to walk and bike into the greenspace and trails just beyond their reach. The project builds directly on the walkability work already underway through our AARP Community Challenge grant along the 90A corridor.
We are also putting this funding to work on the Kirby Drive Extension, running from Almeda Genoa to BTW 8, improving how residents move through the district and linking neighborhoods that are currently harder to access. Lastly, we are advancing the Simon Minchen Park Extension, which connects to the Fuqua Land Project, our first land acquisition. That site, a former gas station, is being transformed into green space linking Simon Minchen Park and the Sims Bayou Trail.
“I want to thank Commissioner Ellis for his leadership and innovative approach to government. It opens our minds to what can be achieved,” said George A. Anderson, Board Chair of the Hiram Clarke/Fort Bend Redevelopment Authority.
Commissioner Ellis described the Partnerships Program as a shift in how county government listens to the communities it serves. Rather than waiting on the county to notice a neighborhood’s needs, sixteen organizations across Precinct One, including ours, brought projects forward directly, and the county stepped in to help build them.
For the Hiram Clarke and Fort Bend Houston communities, this funding means real progress on projects already in motion. It means a bridge where there was once a barrier, a more connected Kirby Drive, and another chapter in the ongoing transformation of the Fuqua Land Project into shared green space. Each of these projects reflects what our neighborhoods have been asking for, and this investment helps deliver it faster.
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