Ballpark a Player in Houston’s Revival

Barry Bonds isn’t the only one pinning his hopes on Enron Field.

The cozy ballpark is noted for its generosity to sluggers--a nice feature for a man chasing a home-run record. But it is also seen as a key piece in a remarkable turnaround in this city’s downtown night life, once an oxymoron.

The ballpark, which opened last season, is bringing Houstonians into a formerly down-at-the-heels warehouse district on the downtown’s eastern fringe. A few restaurants have sprung up nearby, vacant buildings are being divided into loft apartments and scaffolding covers the faces of office buildings throughout a section abuzz with construction.

“You get a lot more ordinary folks down here,” said Ross Staine, a downtown attorney who walks to games after work about 20 times a season.

Analysts say the ballpark area, one of several pockets in the city’s central core where renovations are in evidence, is part of a broader nationwide marketing trend that encourages shoppers to get out of their cars. As the ballpark neighborhood waits its turn to take off, other parts of downtown Houston have sprouted trendy bistros, high-end movie theaters and new lofts to lure Houstonians from the outskirts. Perhaps nowhere in America is the attachment to cars as strong, and the change in recent habits as noteworthy, as here.

“In Houston, it’s particularly striking because this city was the epitome of the empty downtown at night. There was nothing to do. You would come to the theater, get back in your car and go home,” said Stephen Klineberg, a Rice University sociologist who studies the attitudes of Houston’s famously suburban populace. “The idea of walking hand in hand with your girlfriend down the street and window-shopping, or sitting down at a sidewalk cafe, that’s very new for Houston. And Enron Field plays a very critical role.”

Eyes will be on the $310-million ballpark, with a whimsical, retro design, when Bonds, the San Francisco Giants outfielder, continues his quest to break the single-season home-run record during three games against the Houston Astros starting tonight. He needs one to tie the mark of 70 belonging to Mark McGwire.

About 20 people stood Monday outside Enron’s sidewalk box office, hoping for a chance to catch Bonds’ bid and to root on their Astros, in the thick of their own battle for a National League playoff spot.

Among those who snared tickets was Miguel Prado, a Houston native who works as a computer specialist about 25 miles outside the city and never has had much use for downtown. He enjoyed the Astrodome on the edge of town, but to many others it seemed hopelessly out of sync with the downtown-ballpark vogue.

He said Enron Field, all sleek with its big windows and clean brick exterior, looked good from the outside. “I like the fact that they’re trying to renovate downtown. It’s a dump,” Prado said.

The city’s downtown suffered grievously during the oil bust, losing 40% of its value from 1987 to 1996.

The look is changing, though not as fast as some would like.

Two blocks from the ballpark, an office lunch crowd filled the table at Irma’s Southwest Grill, an upscale eatery whose menu boasts Atlantic salmon, pork tenderloin--and the picture of a batter. Proximity to the future stadium motivated Bruce Williams and Louis Galvan to turn vacant office space into a restaurant in 1999.

Business has been “on track” but not as robust as they had imagined, being so close to Enron Field. The development of other restaurants, stores and housing has lagged.

“The feeling was it was going to spur development at the east side of downtown. It really hasn’t done that yet, frankly,” Williams said. “The lack of development around us has been the biggest disappointment.”

There are few signs yet of wholesale transformation immediately around the field. Williams points out the window at several buildings that remain vacant. Much of the rest of the neighborhood is devoted to parking lots.

“We’re really the only one on the edge of the frontier,” Williams said.

But optimism runs high. Business leaders and merchants say the ballpark is one component of a more ambitious east side make over. Within blocks, work is underway on an indoor arena that will be the new home for the Rockets of the National Basketball Assn. and the Comets of the Women’s National Basketball Assn., along with a minor-league hockey team. The city’s convention center is being expanded, and a 1,200-room hotel is being built as part of the project. In all, 17 projects are in the works.

Officials say Enron Field has spurred more than $700 million in development and raised collections of property taxes in surrounding blocks by more than $2 million.

Across from Enron Field, a loft complex is set to open soon and a 34-story office and residential tower is planned. More townhomes are being built to house what boosters hope becomes an influx of downtown dwellers. In the past four years, about 4,000 people have moved into renovated warehouses and other places.

Although many residents were already drawn to a cluster of new restaurants and theaters, called Bayou Place, in the theater district on the west side of downtown, the ballpark widened interest.

“When Enron was built, it just brought all these people who ordinarily wouldn’t come downtown. They didn’t work downtown. They didn’t live downtown,” said Priscilla Larson, president and CEO of the Downtown Houston Assn., a nonprofit group that promotes the neighborhood.

Those who opposed the project, financed mostly through taxes, argue that any development stemming from the ballpark is lost somewhere else. “It’s a zero-sum game. There’s no net increase in economic activity,” said Barry Klein, who heads a property rights group.

To social observers like Klineberg, benefits go beyond dollars and cents. As a gathering spot, the ballpark offers a place for Houston’s collage of cultures to merge.

“We remain a very segregated city,” he said. “The ballpark is one of those places where all of Houston comes.”