Midtown Urban Design
Houston, TX
Services Provided
Landscape Architecture, Urban Design, Planning , Master Planning, Community Planning, Corridor Planning and Design, Streetscapes, Design Standards and Guidelines, Operations and Maintenance Planning, Stakeholder Engagement, Implementation Coordination
Awards
H-GAC Houston Livable Centers - Midtown; Project Planning Award; American Planning Association, Texas Chapter; 2010
Midtown Parks and Open Space Master Plan; Planning Process Honorable Mention, Parks and Natural Areas Award; Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC); 2012
Bagby Street; Silver Certified Greenroad, Greenroad, 2013
Midtown Houston is a model of compact, connected urban living with a thriving arts scene and high-quality parks. Since Rebecca Leonard led a Livable Centers Study in 2009, Midtown has grown to nearly 13,000 residents and invested tens of millions into parks, streets, and cultural facilities — leveraging those investments for significant private development. From a baseline appraised value of $211 million in 1994 to over $3 billion today, the district issues bonds based on that growth to reinvest in the public realm. Rebecca, now at Lionheart, has served as on-call planner, urban designer, and landscape architect for Midtown for over a decade, leading sequential Strategic Plan updates, Design Guidelines, and numerous park and streetscape projects.
Lionheart’s on-call work has spanned mapping, stakeholder engagement, communications, and planning — and has guided subsequent District initiatives. In 2022, Lionheart updated Midtown’s Parks and Public Space Master Plan, completing stakeholder engagement, mobility and streetscape design, and a concepts and implementation roadmap. In 2023, Lionheart led a comprehensive redevelopment study for the 42-block North Midtown area along IH45, collaborating with HR&A on market analysis and using parametric urban design modeling to develop the North Midtown Urban Transformation Framework — an implementation roadmap of projects, programs, and policies to catalyze development. In 2024–2025, Lionheart and Cushman & Wakefield built on the North Midtown Transportation Framework by facilitating developer outreach surveys and workshops to produce a tailored set of development incentives for Midtown.
Lionheart also provides implementation expertise, most recently leading a streetscape refresh of McGowen and Elgin Streets — scoping repairs, developing bid documents, assisting with contractor selection, and serving as design consultant and construction observer through project delivery.
