Frank Donnelly, right, and board member Peter Acquaro at City Council today
The Southwest Management District has annexed part of the adjacent Richmond Avenue business corridor at the request of owners of commercial property there.
The added area between Hillcroft Avenue and Chimney Rock Road includes more than 120 properties that are worth a total of more than $116 million and are owned and or managed by at least eight entities.
After studying the District’s success in serving businesses and the public in its boundaries, property owners along the Richmond corridor asked the District to be included in the service area. In particular, the owners sought to benefit from the District’s public safety programs, which include funding extra police and private security patrols, mobile security cameras; FLOCK cameras that notify the Houston Police Department when they spot license plates of vehicles associated with serious crime; public dissemination of safety information, customized monthly crime reports, sponsorship of police events, funding of police equipment and more.
“The Management District deeply appreciates the property owners’ vote of confidence in the results it gets from the many projects that are designed to benefit the public,” Chairman Kenneth Li said. “As a longtime business owner in the District, I appreciate the owners’ desire for an effective overlay of safety and security.”
Li created a public safety subcommittee to review and examine security in the annexed area every month, mirroring a subcommittee for Chinatown, which contains the largest cluster of businesses in the District.
However, District programs cover the entire area within its boundaries, including the Gandhi District on Hillcroft Avenue, the Sharpstown area, Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital and Houston Baptist University. The District contains some of the city’s most diverse populations.
The District board selected Frank Donnelly, a Richmond Avenue property owner and president of Kensinger Donnelly LLC, to join the board along with Blue Baillio, vice president of operations at Memorial Hermann. They were nominated by Mayor Sylvester Turner and confirmed by City Council today.
“This new alliance will pave the way for more southwest Houston businesses to thrive and develop more effectively and with greater confidence in their long-term safety,” Donnelly said. “We are proud to join the Southwest Management District.”
State law, under which the District was created in 2005, gives the District the authority to enlarge its service area.
