Business View Magazine | March 2020

310 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE MARCH 2020 the energy of Town Square. And we will build, probably, two other adjacent eateries in the future, plus an art walk, an urban play zone, and a host of other public spaces. To me, it’s an extension of Town Square. We have not launched that project yet; we’re still in the RFP and design phases, right now, but that is coming, as well. “We also continue to implement a significant public arts program, complete with murals. We’re going to get into other art forms, as well. There’s a new concept called street painting, where you commission artists to take sections of roadway and create art out of them. It’s been done in several areas in the country, so we’re probably going to experiment with it. We’re also going to experiment with more ‘physical’ art, i.e. statues, and try to implement some things that educate as well as dazzle the eye. We continue to do our utility box wraps. This is where we take traffic cabinets and other utility electrical fixtures and wrap them with artwork. So, we’re going to let our imaginations become unleashed in the Downtown Arts District.” Further out are two major residential projects: on the north side of town, the Friendswood Development Company has initiated construction on a 1,500 unit, 500- acre, master-planned community; and the Trinity Oaks subdivision to the south, “is rolling forward,” according to Davis. In addition, there is substantial interest from other residential developers to locate around the Grand Parkway project, a 180-mile loop around the Houston metro area, with its terminus at the Fred Hartman Bridge. “This is, probably, this region’s most significant transportation project,” Davis states. “And Baytown is very fortunate to be among the first segments to be completed by TXDOT. That highway also passes right by, and adjacent to, the Trinity Oaks project. So, needless to say, not only is there significant additional residential development interest in that area, but there is significant commercial development interest, as well, because it services all of those