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Katy is Bursting at the Seams

Katy Boardwalk District

Katy (Fort Bend Co.) – The City of Katy’s plans for a 55,000 square-foot convention center with attached hotel appear in good shape, pending approval of a financing mechanism with the Fort Bend County Commission.

Once the county commissioners are on board, Katy will be positioned to embark on what promises to be a major addition to a western Houston suburb that is already experiencing a significant growth spurt.

In addition to several new hotels that have just been, or are being built, Katy’s city council broke ground in February on a new three-story City Hall Building, and will soon break ground on a new fire station.

Katy Boardwalk District

The success of Katy Mills Mall, it draws 11 million visitors annually, generated the current plans to build a convention center in the vicinity. Simpkins Group, the developer that owns the land surrounding the mall, is in final negotiations with Katy Development Authority to sell 12 acres for the convention center/hotel, said Katy director of tourism, marketing and public relations, Kayce Reina.

The convention center/hotel would be southeast of the mall, south of Kingsland Boulevard and adjacent to a city detention pond. Katy-based Kerry R. Gilbert & Associates provided city council a conceptual design that includes a 2-mile boardwalk criss-crossing the detention pond (which is depicted as a manmade lake), as well as a mixed use of offices, retail, single-family residential, parking garage.

The city would prefer to lease the land where the hotel would go and have a private developer build the hotel, Reina said. An incentive to attract development would be an extension to 2038 of the existing city-county tax increment reinvestment zone, thereby dedicating tax revenue within the zone for future improvements.

“We would hope that the convention center would break ground next year,” Reina said. “As far as the project in its entirety, that would be an 8- to 10-year project just because of its scale.”

Construction cost of the convention center has been put at about $10 million, with another $1.75 million earmarked for the boardwalk. Meanwhile, during a December presentation of the Boardwalk District, city council was told Katy Mills Mall is in the process of updating the exterior and interior at a cost of approximately $25 million.

City buildings and town square

On Dec. 8, city council authorized the mayor to sign an agreement with Slattery Tackett Architects LLP of Houston to design the new Fire Station No. 2 Building.

Then in January, the city signed an agreement with general contractor Durotech Inc. to build a new city hall building for a maximum price of just over $7.5 million. In mid-February, Durotech broke ground. The new city hall building is situated across Avenue C from the existing government complex. Reina said the construction timeline was to be 14 months. Turner Duran Architects designed the city hall structure, she added.

Once the new City Hall Building is complete, a portion of the existing city government complex at 910 Avenue C will be demolished. As Reina explained it, staffing is overcrowded and departments are scattered across a series of inter-connected, one-story buildings, “and we’re bursting at the seams.”

“About two-thirds of what currently exists will be taken down. The rest will remain,” she said.

There are tentative plans to redesign the grounds where the buildings slated for demolition into some type of town square. On March 23, city council authorized the mayor to work out an agreement with LJA Engineering Inc. for professional services for “Katy Town Square Phase 1 and 2.”

Reina said there is a conceptual design in progress for the town square, but it has not been shown to city council yet.

At the same March 23 meeting, city council authorized the mayor to enter an agreement with Burditt, a Conroe-based environmental consultant, to design the Katy Arboretum Project. This was spurred by an October donation from Centerpoint Energy of a three-year maintenance budget, if the city would install a 3-acre arboretum within Katy City Park.

Parks and Recreation Director Brad Barnes said the Burditt designs will take about three to four months to finalize. Preliminary discussions for the arboretum involved a total budget of about $50,000, Barnes said.

“There will be some site work, but a large part of it will be for the purchasing and planting of trees,” Barnes added.