TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGES COMING The 12.5-acre Edison Center redevelopment is designed to bring a new performing arts theater, business incubator space, a health clinic, public green space and restaurants. In addition to a ordable housing, the project will assist Fort Bend Houston across ve main areas:
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The foundation aims to foster a variety of minority-owned businesses and restaurants on the property.
The developer projects the 400-seat theater will host 59,400 visitors per year.
Festival Plaza will house a year-round concert venue.
RENDERINGS COURTESY STUDIO RED ARCHITECTS
Minority business accelerator Two partners, Houston Business Development, Inc. and Texas Culinary Center, will help 22 minority businesses and generate an estimated 238 incubator jobs. Arts & culture The Edison Cultural Arts Center, a 400-seat theater with studio spaces, will bring 59,400 annual visitors. Constable
Quality early education An early literacy center will partner with Fort Bend ISD to bring pre-K education to up to 45 children per year. Outdoor greenspace and public art A new park, Festival Park, will provide year-round programming to an estimated 19,800 annual visitors. Health care clinic A primary health care clinic, Legacy Community Health, will provide care to an estimated 4,624 annual patients.
W. FUQUA ST.
SITE PLAN
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SOURCE: EDISON ARTS FOUNDATION COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
Redevelopment project looks to transformrundown shopping center into community destination BY HUNTER MARROW
100-seat black box theater, a dance studio and space for after-school pro- gramming, per project documents. “This will provide access to the bus line and [Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County services] for people that do not have a car and cannot get their child there,” Mable said. The arts academy’s move onto Fuqua Street will serve Fort Bend Houston, where 91% of the 3,239 Fort Bend ISD students are economically disadvantaged, according to project documents. The after-school arts programming o ered by the center will provide students in local schools more opportunities for arts educa- tion, FBISD o cials said. “We are excited The Edison Center will o er some of our students addi- tional exposure to the arts while in school and after they graduate,” dis- trict o cials said in an email. However, potential bene ts extend beyond the classroom to the local economy, said Martha Castex-Tatum, Houston’s vice mayor pro tem, who also represents Houston’s District K, where the Fort Bend Houston Super Neighborhood shares jurisdiction with Fort Bend County’s Precinct 2. According to nine-year project pro- jections, two business incubators that will move into the mixed-use rede- velopment—Houston Business Devel- opment Inc. and the Texas Culinary
destination has faded since its devel- opment in the 1970s, said Theodore Andrews, chair of the Hiram Clarke/ Fort Bend Houston Redevelopment Authority, also known as Tax Incre- ment Reinvestment Zone 25. “This community was a premier suburban portion of Houston in the 1970s so people wanted to live in this area,” he said. “After it began to change, people were not ocking to the area as much, so this new devel- opment is certainly positive.” The Edison Arts Foundation, a local Black-led arts nonpro t, is develop- ing and managing the space through the collaboration of 12 nonpro ts and public donors, including the city of Houston, Fort Bend ISD and Hous- ton Business Development Inc., a nonpro t that looks to stimulate economic growth in communities throughout Houston. Once complete, the revitalization project is designed to create new ser- vices and amenities through a ord- able housing, health care, economic opportunity, job creation, early child- hood education, performing arts and cultural education, Edison Arts Foun- dation President Charity Carter said. The $26.2 million Phase 1 combined
a ordable housing, which was com- pleted last June, and a prekindergar- ten early education center set to open in late March. Construction on Phase 2 of the Edison Center, which costs $18.8 million, is set to begin in March. By fall 2022, the center’s retail com- ponents should be completed. A year later, in fall 2023, the centerpiece of the project, the Edison Cultural Arts Center, is scheduled to be completed, said Carter. Community bene ts As a resident of the Briargate neighborhood in Fort Bend Houston, Latasha Armstrong Mable said her daughter will directly bene t from the redevelopment. Mable’s daughter has been enrolled in the ne arts program at the Fort Bend Academy of Arts & Dance—run by the Edison Arts Foundation—for the last three years. The academy at 1959 Texas Parkway, Missouri City, is about a ve-minute car ride away for Mable. But there are parents who do not have access to the academy due to a lack of public transit, she said. The Edison Center will also bring a 400-seat main stage theater, a
Fort BendHouston, a neighborhood located between South Sam Houston Tollway and McHard Road, is serv- ing as the site for a project looking to redevelop a shopping center built in the late 1970s and early 1980s into a catalyst for community revitalization. Called The Edison Center, the 12.5- acre, $18.8million redevelopmentwill repurpose what the developer calls a “blighted” shopping center located at 7100 Fuqua St., Missouri City, which has sat empty for 10 years. The center will transform into a new cultural arts district designed to advance the qual- ity of life, well-being and prosperity for residents, according to documents from the project’s capital campaign. Fort Bend Houston, the area where the mixed-use redevelopment is slated to open, is a historically mid- dle-class Black community, said Fort Bend County Precinct 2 Commis- sioner Grady Prestage, who serves the Sugar Land and Missouri City area. The median household income in 2019 was $62,322, higher than the rest of Houston, at $52,338, accord- ing to the city’s super neighborhood resource assessment. Still, the community’s status as a
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