Woodlands Mall
The second largest municipal area in the Houston Metropolis is The Woodlands, Texas. Within The Woodlands, the Woodlands Mall resides in key property next to several of their iconic entertainment districts. In 2016, the mall entered its lastest phase of expansion, bringing new key tenants, most notably Dick’s Sporting Goods, to The Woodlands. With parking already overcrowded, General Growth Properties (GGP) decided it was time to expand the parking facilities at this location. GGP invested in two state-of-the-art parking garages to facilitate ease of parking. Both parking garages required an architectural skin to meet The Woodlands strict architectural compliance codes.
Project Team:
Owner : General Growth Properties
Architect : ELS Architecture and Urban Design
Structural Engineer : Walker Parking
General Contractor : Whiting-Turner
Precast Specialty Engineer : HGS
From 2010, The Woodlands, Texas has seen over a 20 percent growth in population. With this unprecedented growth, came more companies, jobs, and space required to hold them. That is why in 2015, Archway Properties decided to expand their Wildwood campus, which is home to Woodlands based energy company, Geosouthern. This campus expansion, an eight story structure with associated parking garage, is the largest structure on the Wildwood campus, and show the expectation for future growth and development of the Woodlands area.
Driving south along Interstate 45 towards Houston, you will see Memorial Hermann’s hospital in The Woodlands. Memorial Hermann is Houston’s largest hospital system, and when you’re the largest, you need sufficient parking for your clients. They chose East Texas Precast to provide the structural system to assist them with their parking needs.
Located in the Galleria district of Houston, 3009 Post Oak required parking just feet off of the highway. Our experience allowed us to design and erect a solution that cantilevered under their structure to integrate with their elevator systems and provide the parking necessary for their structure. In addition, a solution combining traditional and architectural finishes allowed us to provide Skanska with a cost-effective solution.
The Katy Ranch Parking Garage has become an exemplar of designing to prepare for future expansion. By using ramp walls on the exterior face of the garage, we were able to provide a parking structure that not only reduced costs in the first phase, but will substantially reduce costs when they decide it is time to complete the garage.
One of the largest parking structures in Houston, Lakes on Post Oak is set back just off the majors highways in the Galleria district of Houston. Despite being hardly visible, this hulking garage holds nearly 2000 vehicles. It is estimated that by choosing East Texas Precast, Balfour Beatty and the design team was able to cut almost 6 months off their schedule versus cast-in-place concrete options.
As Chicago Bridge and Iron prepared for an additional office building at their headquarters, the need for additional parking arose. With East Texas Precast’s help, CB&I was able to build an addition to their parking structure that fully integrated with their previous build.
Precast Specialty Engineer: CEG
While precast concrete is known for its efficiency through repetition, a small precast parking garage with an efficient design can yield huge financial advantages for its owner. That is just what Geosouthern set out to do when they built this parking garage, perfectly designed for the employees their headquarters held.
Owner: Geosouthern
The Howard Hughes Corportation had a problem as they were building Hughes Landing. They only needed half of a parking garage until both their accompanying structures were completed. By taking advantages of East Texas Precast’s large production facility and experienced erection crews, the entire garage was able to be produced and the first half was erected. Upon completion of Two Hughes Landing, the second half of the parking garage was integrated into the final structure.
Owner: Howard Hughes Corp.
The University of Houston wanted a precast parking garage that served as the entryway to their campus and stadium and they needed it built over the summer to not disrupt classes. By using two cranes to install this over 2000 space parking garage and different types of architectural precast finishes, we were able to meet the University of Houston goals.
Designing an entire complex can be difficult, but by using precast for the parking garages, Transwestern and E.E. Reed were able to minimize material stored on site and maximize the efficiency of constructability for their structures. The final result was three parking garages to match their accompanying buildings for prime real estate in the energy corridor.
Mixed use developments are one of the hottest treads in real estate development today. City Centre, located in the West, Houston, began development in 2010. In 2015, Midway Companies added the fifth phase of the one and a half million square foot campus, City Centre Five. The latest structure offers an additional 200,000 square feet of office with additional retail and integrated parking. The parking structure was design with both precast and cast-in-place elements, and was designed to optimize speed of construction, tight installation spaces, and of course, cost effectiveness.