There will also be a health club and a 180-car garage as well as surface parking for 158 cars at the complex.

It will occupy 29 of the 75 acres, with surface parking for 1,200 cars.

There will also be surface parking on the nine-acre residentially zoned site, which the developers bought last month.

Strip malls pop up where there is a lot of cheap land, for lots of surface parking.

And 60 percent of the surface area downtown is surface parking.

It was first acquired by the county in the 1950s as a bridge construction staging area and has most recently been used for surface parking.

Penrose's surface parking and five-story garage provide space for 1,680 vehicles.

The development's proximity to surface parking and highway ramps appealed to Equitable.

When it was vacant it was used as surface parking.

By the late 1980s, 35% of Downtown Houston's land area consisted of surface parking.