Hub of Woodlands follows 40-year-old sketch

Some components of The Woodlands started more humbly than others, but among the most modest was the creation of Town Center.

The concept for the The Woodlands Town Center was first sketched on an 8-by-10-inch index card in downtown Houston in 1972 by Robert Heineman, now vice president of planning for The Woodlands Development Company.

"In the early '70s, it was typical for architects and planners to use 8-by-10 index cards for brainstorming; we did it a lot," Heineman said. "I have always done a lot of diagraming. For planners and architects, diagrams are important. They're the beginning of an idea."

The sketch is simple, showing a "Metro Center" just west of I-45 with "office" space on either side.

The map shows "residential" between Metro Center and a blue circle entitled "Lake Woodlands" with a "transit system" connecting it.

The "metro center" has been renamed Town Center, the central hub of The Woodlands business and retail development.

The only other roadways sketched are Robinson Road and Tamina Road, which are now Woodlands Parkway and Research Forest Drive, respectively.

"This was one of dozens of ideas and concepts and diagrams that was developed during those early days," he said. "This one is close to what actually happened."

Today, several Class A office buildings are located west of I-45, south of The Woodlands Mall and retail shopping centers. West of Town Center is the East Shore neighborhood, which is east of Lake Woodlands.

In developing Town Center, the plan was for it to be a mixed-use downtown, meaning residential, office space and retail.

"In a suburban area, [mixed-use] was unusual back then, in particular for Houston," he said.

The Town Center evolved very slowly over time, Heineman said.

"George Mitchell's idea was to have a live, work community—that's what distinguishes The Woodlands," he said. "Other communities are all residential, suburban neighborhoods. His goal was always to have that live, work opportunity."

The best place for the Town Center was off the freeway, Heineman said, and then to develop residential around the Town Center.

Most city planners at the time would have put a grocery store right off the freeway where the office space is on the index card, but not Mitchell, Heineman said. If that advice had been followed, a grocery store would be in the spot where the Anadarko Petroleum Corp. tower stands now.

The transit system indicated on the diagram is now the Waterway and trolley system.

"The idea was to connect the downtown area with a linear transit corridor which became the Waterway," Heineman said.