{"id":11515,"date":"2018-04-12T22:38:49","date_gmt":"2018-04-12T22:38:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tmc.edu\/news\/former-sears-houston-innovation-district\/"},"modified":"2019-08-16T15:04:02","modified_gmt":"2019-08-16T15:04:02","slug":"former-sears-houston-innovation-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tmc.edu\/news\/2018\/04\/former-sears-houston-innovation-district\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Sears Building to be New Houston Innovation District"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Near the escalators of the former Midtown Sears\u2014known to be the first in Houston, Texas Medical Center CEO William McKeon joined Thursday with Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, and Rice University President David Leebron and Station Houston CEO John Reale to announce plans for what will become Houston\u2019s innovation district.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is an important day for the entire city,\u201d Turner said. \u201cThis hub will provide a window into what Houston is doing in digital innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 9.4-acre site, anchored by the former Sears building, will get a facelift over the next two years to become a hub designed for the city\u2019s academic, corporate and entrepreneurial communities to collaborate.<\/p>\n<p>Working with Mayor Turner, the idea went from strategy and talk to execution quickly, McKeon said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis brings us beyond the sum of our parts,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have the opportunity to take digital assets from the Texas Medical Center and locate them here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In developing these plans, Rice worked closely with the Greater Houston Partnership, Houston Exponential and Station Houston, the region\u2019s hub for tech innovation and entrepreneurship focused on digital technologies. By leveraging all of the city\u2019s economic strengths, the innovation district will \u201chelp <a href=\"https:\/\/news.rice.edu\/2018\/04\/12\/historic-midtown-sears-building-to-anchor-houston-innovation-district\/#longdesc-return-110097\">transform Houston into a world leader<\/a> in data science and digital technologies,\u201d Leebron said.<\/p>\n<p>Station Houston will serve as incubator and amenity program operator to support startups, create educational programs and connect Houston\u2019s digital workforce to opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>Having companies from different sectors, like health care, energy, consumer and aerospace, collaborate around digital technologies will be advantageous, said Erik Halvorsen, director of the TMC Innovation Institute.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt makes sense to bring companies together from different verticals and have them be in the same space with the same advisors and mentors, sitting in the same sessions, sharing ideas,\u201d he said. \u201cThere would be unanticipated benefits from the collisions that will occur in a place like this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The overall design and development of the building will be led by Hines in conjunction with architects Gensler and James Carpenter. The site, owned by Rice Management Co. was bequeathed to the university by well-known Houstonian Ima Hogg.<\/p>\n<p>It was later leased to Sears, and the department store was built in 1939, deliberately window-less. The architects plan to incorporate light into the space and are already considering areas where that would work organically, including removing panels that covered up parts of windows during a renovation in the 1960s.<\/p>\n<p>The building is located in close proximity to the METRORail Red Line and central to downtown, the Museum District and the Texas Medical Center, which has committed to support the project, along with the Greater Houston Partnership and Houston Exponential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Near the escalators of the former Midtown Sears\u2014known to be the first in Houston, Texas Medical Center CEO William McKeon joined Thursday with Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, and Rice University President David Leebron and Station Houston CEO John Reale to announce plans for what will become Houston\u2019s innovation district. \u201cThis is an important day for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":11519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2607,2606,1994,753],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - 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