Jenkins/Gales & Martinez was retained by the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Texas (METRO) along with a local architecture firm, to provide architectural and engineering services for the METRO’s Downtown Transit Center and Administration Office Building. This new Transit Village is the central focus of METRO’s $300-million, 7.5 mile, 16-station light rail transit starter line.
To complement the starter line’s completion schedule, METRO pursued an extremely fast-track for design and construction for its headquarters. The site will form a hub for bus and rail transit, with a covered nine-bus bay facility and a rail station adjacent to METRO’s administrative headquarters. The design achieved METRO’s objectives to create a downtown landmark, economical to operate and easy to maintain, while also responding to the challenges of South Texas’s environment of high humidity, potential for hurricanes and high water table.
