Mayor Turner would like to see it happen.
Rest in peace
In a recent informal lunch with members of the media as he approached six months in office, Mayor Sylvester Turner ticked off the important things his administration has accomplished — unanimous passage of a balanced budget, pothole repairs — and issues he plans to tackle — the pension mess, theKush problem in city parks, serious street repair projects, job development.
But what really got the mayor excited is the idea of a major amusement park within the city limits of Houston. “If we want to be that destination city in terms of conferences and tourism, we have to have that component in this city,” he said.
“It’s one thing to have the rodeo, that’s once a year for three weeks. The Super Bowl will be here and gone. The America Cup COPA, came, gone. NCAA (Final Four), come and gone. We need a major amusement center in this city, especially to focus on our families and young population that’s every day in this city.”
Turner said the park would have to be located in Houston and not in a suburb.
“I’m not talking about in Katy or Tomball or Spring or Pearland,” he said. “I’m talking about within the 640 square miles of the city of Houston. That’s something we are missing and we are putting out in the atmosphere. Hopefully there will be major investors who are looking within the 640 square miles. You can’t be the fourth largest city, soon to be the third, and not have that added component. So we are taking a very hard look at finding that sort of amusement center.”
Well, half of the original Astroworld site is still available – the other half is now owned by the Rodeo. I have no idea how many other parcels of land within city limits there are that would be big enough for an amusement park, and I strongly suspect the number of such parcels with easy access to a freeway is even smaller, but who knows? It would be cool if it could happen. Swamplot has more.
I’m confused – Houston has been blessed with all those events, Final Four, Copa America, Super Bowl, etc., and the AstroWorld complex has been closed since 2005, 11 years ago. Apparently the absence of an AstroWorld-type “entertainment and amusement center” hasn’t prevented any sports promoter from considering H-Town as a viable venue. I’d think if an investor/developer wanted to put one within the City limits, we’d have heard about it before it came out of Turner’s mouth.