Memorial Park

To accelerate implementation of the visionary Memorial Park Master Plan, Kinder Foundation offered a grant of $70 million to Memorial Park Conservancy in April 2018, which was Houston’s largest single parks grant at that time. This grant became the catalyst for a public-private partnership with the City of Houston. The resulting “Ten-Year Plan” provides capital funds for many of the Master Plan signature projects and critical connections along with committed resources for their long-term care.

Photo of the Kinder Land Bridge and the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Prairie, taken May 2023. Photo courtesy of Nick Hubbard/Memorial Park Conservancy.
A runner along the Seymour Liebermann Exercise Trail within the Clay Family Eastern Glades. Photo courtesy of Nick Hubbard/Memorial Park Conservancy.
A cyclist within the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Prairie. Photo courtesy of Nick Hubbard/Memorial Park Conservancy.
Memorial Park's Clay Family Eastern Glades and Hines Lake as seen from above. Photo courtesy of Nick Hubbard/Memorial Park Conservancy.
Taken in Memorial Park on February 10, 2023, this photo features nearly all of the people involved in bringing Memorial Park's 10 Year Plan to life. In the front row middle are Nancy (in green) and Rich Kinder.
The Memorial Groves will serve as a living memorial in the form of a hardwood forest commemorating Camp Logan soldiers and will be an ideal space for field trips, family gatherings and community education.
An April 2025 rendering of Memorial Groves provided by Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects.

Kinder Foundation’s grant specified that Memorial Park Conservancy would raise the remaining $55 million of the total $125 million in private funding, with the City committing to a $50 million public dollar investment for infrastructure improvements. It also leveraged the potential for $30 million in federal support.

The Ten-Year Plan supports connectivity to and within the park including a land bridge and prairie over Memorial Drive; destination projects such as Eastern Glades, Memorial Groves, and Phase 1 of the Sports Complex; and ecological restoration projects. Connectivity components of the plan envision a trail/bridge system north over I-10, linking the White Oak Bayou Greenway trail system, and south over Buffalo Bayou (dependent on federal funding); a pedestrian bridge over Memorial Drive on the east side of the park; and other trails and crossings. See the full Memorial Park Master Plan approved by Houston City Council in 2015.

The Clay Family Eastern Glades opened to critical acclaim in July 2020. In early 2022, Houstonians gathered to celebrate the completion of four spacious Memorial Drive tunnels, which allow 55,000 cars to pass each day below the massive earthen land bridge. In February 2023, the iconic Kinder Land Bridge and the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Prairie opened. The nearly 100-acre destination reconnects the north and south halves of the park with safe passage for humans and animals over Memorial Drive and reestablishes native coastal prairie to enable a more resilient ecology and diverse habitat.

In April 2025, Memorial Park Conservancy unveiled plans for Memorial Groves, the latest project originally envisioned by the Memorial Park Master Plan to be delivered as part of the Ten-Year Plan. Memorial Groves will honor the original vision of the park as a greenspace that pays tribute to those who served at Houston’s Camp Logan during World War I, while also adding new recreational amenities and additional parking for everyday park users. Kinder Foundation contributed an additional $10 million toward the $50.5 million transformative project. Construction is slated to begin in 2026, with a target completion date in late 2027.

Information on page is current as of January 28, 2026. The life to date gifts and future commitments total of $82,323,965 may include other gifts not mentioned in the web copy above.

memorialparkconservancy.org

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