At its May 20 meeting, Tomball City Council expressed support for a partnership between the city and Harris County Precinct 3 concerning Samuel Mathews and Broussard parks.
What happened
Eric Heppen, a senior project manager with Precinct 3, gave a presentation to council where he proposed the idea of combining Mathews and Broussard parks into one big park. Precinct 3 does the majority of maintenance for Broussard Park.
“Right now, Harris County has Mathews Park,” Heppen said. “It’s a great park. Y’all have Broussard Park—another great park. We’d love to just start removing the lines and incorporating [the parks] into one concept.”
The concept drawing for the proposed combined park Heppen showed council included:
- A 24,000-square-foot community center
- Expanded paved parking
- An outdoor pavilion and multipurpose lawn
- A pond stocked with fish
- Two pickleball courts
“We wanted to use this as an opportunity to show you what a partnership could look like if the city was interested,” Heppen said.
Diving in deeper
Heppen said the primary onset for proposing this partnership is the community center.
“Where those community buildings are currently, it’s just something people can rent for a small event,” Heppen said. “You can still do that within the [existing] community center. This opens up so much more opportunities.”
Heppen also said Precinct 3 is not asking the city to help fund this proposed project.
“Commissioner [Tom Ramsey] is not asking y’all to pay anything,” Heppen said. “This is something where [the] commissioner [is] looking to pay for the construction of these park facilities, ... [ and] pay for the construction of the community center. As I said, it’ll be done in phases. It’s not going to all be done at one time, but we’re not waiting for a financial contribution from y’all. This is really an opportunity to try to give benefits up here to taxpayers.”
What else?
Heppen said Precinct 3 is also planning to improve the intersection at Hufsmith and Zion roads.
“That is something we are currently working on to try to improve that intersection, put a signal over there, improve that right-hand turn radius going from Zion onto Hufsmith, so that’s one of those things we’re also working on,” Heppen said.
Quote of note
“Anytime you can partner, it has a benefit,” Position 5 council member Randy Parr said.
Stay tuned
Heppen said the goal is to get a master-plan concept put together.
“I know that if we do the community center, Commissioner [Tom Ramsey] wants me to start design on that soon,” Heppen said.
