DID HOU KNOW? Located 20 feet below the streets of downtown, the Houston tunnel system stretches over six miles and connects 95 city blocks. Visitors will find dining, retail, and connectivity between buildings. You can explore the tunnels during weekdays from 6am until 6pm. The system is not open on weekends.
The origin of the tunnel system dates back to the 1930s when a tunnel was built to connect the Houston Post-Dispatch to the Sterling Building, both of which were owned by former Texas Governor Ross Sterling. Near that same time a tunnel was built to connect the Travis, the Texan, and the Uptown theaters owned by Will Horwitz in what he called the, “Uptown Center Project”. Today the 75-story JP Morgan Chase Tower stands at the location of the former Travis Theater. The original tunnels were filled with debris in 1968, over two decades following the death of Horwitz and the closing of his former theaters. Jesse Jones also built two small tunnels below the Gulf Building, which was completed in 1929.
As the tunnels began to expand in the 1960s, the Bank of the Southwest Building at 919 Milam was the first to be connected into the new pedestrian tunnel system. The 1970s expansion of new office buildings in Downtown Houston led by developer Gerald D. Hines were a major catalyst for the additional growth of the tunnel system. Each new section added is privately owned and not by the City of Houston. Some access points remain available for tenant use only.
There are two main street level access points at the Wells Fargo Plaza on Louisiana Street and the McKinney Garage on Main Street. The Harris County tunnel is located on the north end of downtown, but does not connect to the main tunnel system. The George R. Brown Convention Center, Minute Maid Park, Toyota Center, and the Houston Public Library are also not connected to the main tunnel system, which is designed to serve weekday workers from various downtown buildings.
The tunnels have flooded in major rain events like Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, in which the overflowing Buffalo Bayou began to fill the subterranean structures. Since then, some buildings have installed floodgates to prevent future damage.
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