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Designing POST, a downtown cultural campus opening this November 13.
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Introducing 713 Music Hall, Downtown’s newest music venue.
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Downtown Houston's hub for culture, food, shopping, and recreation.
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A Texas-sized food hall featuring local and international vendors.
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Work where the views are inspiring.
Total Project
550,000+
Sq. Ft.
Parking
900+
Surface Spaces
Rooftop Greenspace
240,000+
Sq. Ft.
Avg Household Income
$134,519
Within 1 Mile
Traffic Count
13,000+
Vehicles
Walk Score
80
Very Walkable
Located at the intersection of multiple neighborhoods
Houston’s Theater District is the second largest theater district in the country
Buffalo Bayou Park has miles and miles of hike and bike trails
Embark on a waterway journey by kayaking on the Bayou
Carlos Cruz Diez installation at the Buffalo Bayou Cistern
The Heritage Society hosts elaborate historic reenactment events that transport you to a different era
Hermann Square in front of City Hall lights up with colors for special events
Total Project
550,000+
Sq. Ft.
Parking
900+
Surface Spaces
Rooftop Greenspace
240,000+
Sq. Ft.
Avg Household Income
$134,519
Within 1 Mile
Traffic Count
13,000+
Vehicles
Walk Score
80
Very Walkable
Located at the intersection of multiple neighborhoods
Houston’s Theater District is the second largest theater district in the country
Buffalo Bayou Park has miles and miles of hike and bike trails
Embark on a waterway journey by kayaking on the Bayou
Carlos Cruz Diez installation at the Buffalo Bayou Cistern
The Heritage Society hosts elaborate historic reenactment events that transport you to a different era
Hermann Square in front of City Hall lights up with colors for special events
Built in 1934, POST was first established as a depot adjacent to Houston’s Grand Central Station, the city’s gateway for travelers and freight. Grand Central Station was purchased by the US Government in the late 1950’s and demolished. Originally designed by Wilson, Morris, Crain & Anderson, the same architects that designed the Astrodome, the present building swallowed the of the original 1930’s depot structure in its brick walls.
Houston’s Grand Central Station was originally built by Southern Pacific to replace an 1886 train depot. Photo source: Classic Trains.
The USPS headquarters in 1959. The new building annexed the original 1936 Texas Central Depot, which is seen in the top right corner.
We made the decision to establish and preserve the building as a historic landmark because of several key features that made the structure emblematic of its period.
When the USPS building opened to the public in 1961, the United States was locked in a cultural, military, and technological contest with the USSR. As a result, the building was designed to FBI security standards with an ultra robust structure that included multiple nuclear bomb shelters. Moreover, the architects designed the building to showcase American industrial prowess and to be a machine that would streamline the sorting and distribution of mail.
State of the art sorting and distribution technology once filled the Post Office
Lookout Galleries have been selectively preserved in the current design.
The architects’ design included a number of industrial management technologies that have been selectively preserved in our redevelopment. One of the features that we are strategically preserving is a network of lookout galleries — we affectionally call them “Spy Tunnels” — that were originally designed to allow supervisors to furtively watch workers to ensure they were not pilfering cash or other valuables sent through the mail.
Other preserved and rehabilitated features include the front administrative office and an elevated public plaza. Reflecting the Modern Era’s emphasis on integrating civic life with work, Wilson, Morris, Craine & Anderson designed the central plaza to be a hub for public events and celebrations. At the building’s opening ceremony in 1961, the Post Office organized an elaborate event at the plaza that included the Boy Scouts carrying American flags and lions from the Houston Zoo.
In 1984, twenty two years after its opening, the Post Office was renamed in honor of Barbara Jordan, the South’s first female African American legislator elected to the US Congress. A Fifth Ward native and civil rights icon, Barbara Jordan was passionate about public service and representing Houston. The inimitable orator stood at the public plaza and delivered these words: “I belong to you. You know me and if you want to honor me that is the highest tribute.”
Barbara Jordan in 1974 at the Rice Hotel with US Rep. Charles Wilson and Spaker Carl Albert. Source: Houston Chronicle
In 2015, the US government decommissioned the Barbara Jordan Post Office and sold the building to Lovett Commercial. Our ambition for POST, to forge new ground and breathe new life into the building, tries to honor her pioneering legacy.
Learn more about our design for the project here.
Houston’s Grand Central Station was originally built by Southern Pacific to replace an 1886 train depot. Photo source: Classic Trains.
The USPS headquarters in 1959. The new building annexed the original 1936 Texas Central Depot, which is seen in the top right corner.
State of the art sorting and distribution technology once filled the Post Office
Lookout Galleries have been selectively preserved in the current design.
Barbara Jordan in 1974 at the Rice Hotel with US Rep. Charles Wilson and Spaker Carl Albert. Source: Houston Chronicle
Built in 1934, POST was first established as a depot adjacent to Houston’s Grand Central Station, the city’s gateway for travelers and freight. Grand Central Station was purchased by the US Government in the late 1950’s and demolished. Originally designed by Wilson, Morris, Crain & Anderson, the same architects that designed the Astrodome, the present building swallowed the of the original 1930’s depot structure in its brick walls.
Houston’s Grand Central Station was originally built by Southern Pacific to replace an 1886 train depot. Photo source: Classic Trains.
The USPS headquarters in 1959. The new building annexed the original 1936 Texas Central Depot, which is seen in the top right corner.
We made the decision to establish and preserve the building as a historic landmark because of several key features that made the structure emblematic of its period.
When the USPS building opened to the public in 1961, the United States was locked in a cultural, military, and technological contest with the USSR. As a result, the building was designed to FBI security standards with an ultra robust structure that included multiple nuclear bomb shelters. Moreover, the architects designed the building to showcase American industrial prowess and to be a machine that would streamline the sorting and distribution of mail.
State of the art sorting and distribution technology once filled the Post Office
Lookout Galleries have been selectively preserved in the current design.
The architects’ design included a number of industrial management technologies that have been selectively preserved in our redevelopment. One of the features that we are strategically preserving is a network of lookout galleries — we affectionally call them “Spy Tunnels” — that were originally designed to allow supervisors to furtively watch workers to ensure they were not pilfering cash or other valuables sent through the mail.
Other preserved and rehabilitated features include the front administrative office and an elevated public plaza. Reflecting the Modern Era’s emphasis on integrating civic life with work, Wilson, Morris, Craine & Anderson designed the central plaza to be a hub for public events and celebrations. At the building’s opening ceremony in 1961, the Post Office organized an elaborate event at the plaza that included the Boy Scouts carrying American flags and lions from the Houston Zoo.
In 1984, twenty two years after its opening, the Post Office was renamed in honor of Barbara Jordan, the South’s first female African American legislator elected to the US Congress. A Fifth Ward native and civil rights icon, Barbara Jordan was passionate about public service and representing Houston. The inimitable orator stood at the public plaza and delivered these words: “I belong to you. You know me and if you want to honor me that is the highest tribute.”
Barbara Jordan in 1974 at the Rice Hotel with US Rep. Charles Wilson and Spaker Carl Albert. Source: Houston Chronicle
In 2015, the US government decommissioned the Barbara Jordan Post Office and sold the building to Lovett Commercial. Our ambition for POST, to forge new ground and breathe new life into the building, tries to honor her pioneering legacy.
Learn more about our design for the project here.
Houston’s Grand Central Station was originally built by Southern Pacific to replace an 1886 train depot. Photo source: Classic Trains.
The USPS headquarters in 1959. The new building annexed the original 1936 Texas Central Depot, which is seen in the top right corner.
State of the art sorting and distribution technology once filled the Post Office
Lookout Galleries have been selectively preserved in the current design.
Barbara Jordan in 1974 at the Rice Hotel with US Rep. Charles Wilson and Spaker Carl Albert. Source: Houston Chronicle
In 2016, after an exhaustive search, OMA New York/Jason Long was selected as the principal design architect for Lovett Commercial’s adaptive reuse of the former USPS headquarters in downtown. The architects began the design of the massive 16-acre parcel with an urbanistic approach that considers how the site could more holistically engage with the surrounding city fabric.
How could the design use POST to stitch together the strategic neighborhoods of Sawyer Heights with downtown’s Theater District and Buffalo Bayou Park?
POST is located at the hinge point between Sawyer Heights, Downtown and Buffalo Bayou Park
The building enjoys a unique relationship to downtown and Buffalo Bayou Park
OMA’s design balances preservation with architectural intervention to create a vibrant new cultural and commercial hub for the city. To integrate the site with north downtown, OMA imagined a giant rake pulling the city into the building and cultivating a new future for the isolated parcel. Each tine of the rake represented an almost surgical puncture into the historic structure, manifesting as three distinct atriums each with its own programmatic and material character. The design uses the building’s rigid column plan to form an internal urban grid with the atriums acting as interior streets.
Furthermore, with POST being a landmarked historic site, OMA’s design leverages the Cold War building’s structural rigidity to propose a radical new program that would connect the project with Buffalo Bayou Park — Skylawn, Texas’ largest rooftop farm and park. To facilitate access to the public rooftop park, the architects inserted three monumental stairs (the X, O, and Z stairs) whose sculptural forms enhance and anchor the programs of each of the three atriums.
Integrating the site with Buffalo Bayou Park has been a key design objective of the Project
Three monumental staircases are carefully inserted into the building to facilitate access to Skylawn
The building is broken into five major zones, each with its own unique program
Visitors enter the building through entries aligned with each atrium
The resulting design is an intricate layer cake, with each level of the project accommodating a different use and offering its own spatial experience. The ground floor acts as a public podium with experience ranging from culture to food to creative work space. Above is a second level of expansive, interactive and collaborative office space. And the 210,000 sft rooftop park, whose meandering paths are a welcome deviation from the rigid orthogonal circulation patterns of the interior, offer occupants and visitors respite with a postcard-worthy view of Houston.
As it once was, the post office will remain a public building, but further enhanced to create a new openness and a gathering place for Houston. The project aims to be an adaptive reuse cultural epicenter linking the city’s past with its future aspirations.
POST is located at the hinge point between Sawyer Heights, Downtown and Buffalo Bayou Park
The building enjoys a unique relationship to downtown and Buffalo Bayou Park
Integrating the site with Buffalo Bayou Park has been a key design objective of the Project
Three monumental staircases are carefully inserted into the building to facilitate access to Skylawn
The building is broken into five major zones, each with its own unique program
Visitors enter the building through entries aligned with each atrium
In 2016, after an exhaustive search, OMA New York/Jason Long was selected as the principal design architect for Lovett Commercial’s adaptive reuse of the former USPS headquarters in downtown. The architects began the design of the massive 16-acre parcel with an urbanistic approach that considers how the site could more holistically engage with the surrounding city fabric.
How could the design use POST to stitch together the strategic neighborhoods of Sawyer Heights with downtown’s Theater District and Buffalo Bayou Park?
POST is located at the hinge point between Sawyer Heights, Downtown and Buffalo Bayou Park
The building enjoys a unique relationship to downtown and Buffalo Bayou Park
OMA’s design balances preservation with architectural intervention to create a vibrant new cultural and commercial hub for the city. To integrate the site with north downtown, OMA imagined a giant rake pulling the city into the building and cultivating a new future for the isolated parcel. Each tine of the rake represented an almost surgical puncture into the historic structure, manifesting as three distinct atriums each with its own programmatic and material character. The design uses the building’s rigid column plan to form an internal urban grid with the atriums acting as interior streets.
Furthermore, with POST being a landmarked historic site, OMA’s design leverages the Cold War building’s structural rigidity to propose a radical new program that would connect the project with Buffalo Bayou Park — Skylawn, Texas’ largest rooftop farm and park. To facilitate access to the public rooftop park, the architects inserted three monumental stairs (the X, O, and Z stairs) whose sculptural forms enhance and anchor the programs of each of the three atriums.
Integrating the site with Buffalo Bayou Park has been a key design objective of the Project
Three monumental staircases are carefully inserted into the building to facilitate access to Skylawn
The building is broken into five major zones, each with its own unique program
Visitors enter the building through entries aligned with each atrium
The resulting design is an intricate layer cake, with each level of the project accommodating a different use and offering its own spatial experience. The ground floor acts as a public podium with experience ranging from culture to food to creative work space. Above is a second level of expansive, interactive and collaborative office space. And the 210,000 sft rooftop park, whose meandering paths are a welcome deviation from the rigid orthogonal circulation patterns of the interior, offer occupants and visitors respite with a postcard-worthy view of Houston.
As it once was, the post office will remain a public building, but further enhanced to create a new openness and a gathering place for Houston. The project aims to be an adaptive reuse cultural epicenter linking the city’s past with its future aspirations.
POST is located at the hinge point between Sawyer Heights, Downtown and Buffalo Bayou Park
The building enjoys a unique relationship to downtown and Buffalo Bayou Park
Integrating the site with Buffalo Bayou Park has been a key design objective of the Project
Three monumental staircases are carefully inserted into the building to facilitate access to Skylawn
The building is broken into five major zones, each with its own unique program
Visitors enter the building through entries aligned with each atrium
