downtown Austin's real estate and neighborhood blog
Check out the Rue de Rainey Market on August 14th, from noon to 7pm.
This is the kick-off event for what is planned to be recurring every other Sunday in the Rainey District. Rue de Rainey Market will feature an array of local artisans, designers, and merchants.
The marketplace will be hosted at 604 Driskill, which is the parking lot to the across from Bar 96.
~Jude
For the past couple of years the east side of Rainey Street’s [already limited] sidewalks were barricaded for the construction of the Millennium Rainey apartments.
Today, those barricades came down! Woo hoo!!! The Millennium Rainey adds 326 downtown apartments to the rental inventory.
Some of you will remember that The Sutton Company assembled several Rainey Street parcels back in 2012 and planned this three story tower. Then, they sold the assemblage to Dinerstein and the intertubes pitched a fit about Lustre Pearl moving.
Now, Lustre Pearl is back, Millennium Rainey is completed, Sutton is focused on Waller Park Place, and the Rainey neighborhood has better sidewalks.
-Jude
As far as Rainey bars go, I really like The Drafting Room at 88 1/2 Rainey. Located on a plot of land right behind The Shore Condos in downtown Austin‘s Rainey Street District, and owned by inveterate downtown-er and Architect Craig Nasso since 1994 (read: WAY before Rainey Street was “cool”), the lot has evolved with the neighborhood and transformed what was an already a lovely home and office into two delightful, separate but intertwined (both are owned by Craig and Holly), pursuits of food and drink.
L’Estelle’s story on it’s website is actually much more eloquently written – check it out here.
If you don’t have time to read it all, here’s my favorite excerpt:
The architect of L’Estelle, then 26 years old, drove down Rainey Street in 1994 and spotted a little piece of “half-lot” that was merely a patch of dirt. The fact that this lot was on a street named Rainey was especially of interest since his mother’s maiden name was Estele Rainey. He bought it, nurtured it, planted every tree and bush and designed a plan for a long life on this little lot. Twenty years ago, he built the back house as a live work office and decided to wait to build a front house when he could design it with a wife if he got married one day.
The architect eventually got married, but during that period, Rainey Street changed from a residential historic neighborhood into a bustling night life district. So the architect changed plans but held sensitively to his dream. He designed and built a front house with his wife which would serve as a kitchen for the people and he converted his office into a quaint beer and wine bar – now the Drafting Room. Together, they open their yard and their hospitality to all who enter, offering a real and authentic connection to the district, its history, and the comfort casual style of gathering under the stars with good drinks, food, and folks. L’Estelle pays respect to their mother, Estele Rainey, the best cook in the family who serves as the advisor and contributor of many homestyle recipes for the preserves and sweets offered in the kitchen.
There’s truly a lot to love when it comes to what Craig and his wife Holly have carefully, tenderly created. Their story is unique and their tie to the neighborhood is genuine; the architecture (and, hence, the vibe) is elegant, modern and comfortable; but, most importantly, the wine is great and the food is TO DIE FOR.
Bottom line: Go there. You won’t regret it. And say hi to Holly and Craig when you visit; they are almost always there making sure things are running right.
p.s. – They are open for Sunday Brunch, too! Starts at 11am…
Drafting Room Facebook | L’estelle Facebook
Want a trip down memory lane? Check out our 2012 Mega Post on Rainey with pics of what the street looked like not but 5 years ago…
You can file this under “N” for “Not that surprising,” but news broke the other day about World Class Capital Group’s ‘eventual’ plans to develop a recently acquired site at 50 & 56 East Avenue. We knew someone was gonna do it, and it might as well be the group already controlling some of the best downtown Austin development sites.
No timeline has been announced, so we can presume Travis County services are there to stay for a little while longer, at least.
Although the site has partial view encumbrances to the west from Skyhouse Apartments and The Milago condos and to the south by Windsor on the Lake, the site does have several excellent vantage points, which combined with no height limitation we’re sure developers will take full advantage of when the time comes to build.
The site was previously owned by Austin Travis County MHMR d/b/a Austin Travis County Integral Care and publicly available documents show a $6.3MM lien against the property from Falcon International Bank, so that’s at least the debt component of the purchase.
The City of Austin currently owns the site across East Avenue (to the east), which is a half green, half poorly paved and mostly unused lot for the time being.
There’s always tons of activity in the downtown Austin restaurant scene, but we’re particularly excited about new restaurants in the Rainey Street District since this area of downtown is changing and maturing more quickly than other parts of downtown.
With the residential that already exists in the district, and more coming online like Millennium Rainey Apartments, 70 Rainey, and the proposed Waller Park Place, expanded commercial options for this downtown Austin area were imminent, and we’re now seeing day spas, salons, a dry cleaner (!), and more eating options pop up in Rainey.
Skyhouse Apartments is filling a corner on the ground floor with a fun looking concept called Emmer and Rye. We’ve reached out, but don’t know a ton about it (there appears to have been a restaurant in Seattle with the same name that closed a couple years back, but we’re unsure if it’s related). The only online marketing they seem to currently have is their Instagram account. We did find some great renderings online from their architect, Kevin Stewart, though:
Additionally, the Hotel Van Zandt, a boutique hotel concept opening right next to The Shore Condos this summer, is opening a very smartly named Geraldine’s restaurant concept, which will boast undoubtedly stunning lake views as well as good food and fun.
Check out their website (it’s just a landing page, right now) here, and sign up for updates.
Also, check out updated Hotel Van Zandt interior renderings at the Austin Business Journal.
These concepts will join existing Rainey dining options No Va, El Naranjo, G’raj Mahal, Bangers, Javelina, Salvation Pizza, and Royal Blue Grocery.
A little over two years ago today, we wrote about a very cool Alley Activation project done by Art Alliance Austin. In the article, we said that many cities around the world are starting to embrace alleys as more than just loading / unloading and trash dumpster zones. We think that for certain alleys, the concept of revitalization and activation makes a ton of sense.
One such alley in the Rainey district of downtown Austin is getting a second look, compliments of the City’s recent acquisition of funding to pave what’s currently little more than a dirt passage littered with dumpsters behind all of your favorite Rainey Street bars. The alley goes from River Street to where the construction for the Millenium Rainey apartments begin (Millenium Rainey received an alley vacation so they were able to build right over the alley).
We think this is very exciting for the neighborhood not only in the broad sense of representing “out-of-the-box” thinking to maximize public space within the limited confines of an urban area, but more practically and specific to the location – we think this activation may have the effect of “bringing in” the businesses on East Avenue that currently face I-35, encouraging more serviceable and integrated uses to make them fit into the neighborhood they inhabit, rather than being hunkering warehouses with chain-link fences, or out of place and isolated highway bars like the ill-fated Agora.**
The establishments on East Avenue are technically part of the Rainey Neighborhood, but many couldn’t feel more incongruous with their surroundings.
We encourage those interested in upgrading the alley to come to the Mexican American Cultural Center at 600 River Street on On April 7, from 9am-7pm. The City is inviting the public to come and give input on current uses of the alley and solicit constructive ideas for future uses that also preserve the “essential service functions” of the alley. Feel free to share constructive ideas in the comments below, too. We’ll be dropping by the Open House and are happy to share any cool ideas on our readers’ behalves!
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**Legacy leather bar Chain Drive is currently residing in part of the structure at 84 East Avenue today. It was formerly tucked away and hidden in plain sight on Willow Street off of Red River before being pushed out – likely due to parcel consolidation for the Waller Park Place / Waller Center. Even though it’s not a bar we personally visit, we’d actually like to see it stay around for posterity, if nothing else.
The Rainey Street District continues to evolve, most recently with the opening of Salvation Pizza at the base the Skyhouse Apartments, and across from Milago condos. And another pizza is apparently underway just down the block at 78 Rainey.
When Skyhouse apartments opened last year, their first retail tenant was the enormously popular Royal Blue Grocery. For months a TABC permit application donned the window and residents wondered when Salvation Pizza would finally open.
Jude and I stopped in the other day and enjoyed a white pizza and it was very, very [Read more…] about Rainey Street District Welcomes Salvation Pizza… and More
The popular Rainey Street district may host the next condo tower to be announced in downtown Austin. Known simply as 70 Rainey, the four lot assemblage, currently occupied by several mobile food trucks, is situated just east of the Mexican American Cultural Center.
While we’ve been expecting a tower on this site, it is noteworthy that 70rainey.com indicates the tower will deliver as condos for sale, rather than previous reports of a multi-family tower with apartments for rent.
The site has been in play for several years and has seen several owners.
The current owner, Freemont Holdings, LLC – a related company of Manhattan developer Sackman Enterprises, acquired the site last year from local Riverside Resources.
City of Austin filings indicate that the site plan might not be fully fleshed out. As of last October engineers are seeking 200 residences, for a total project size of 531,806 sf.
This is a nuanced change from what the project was originally entitled for, and new City of Austin ordinances for density in Rainey Street could hand-tie the developers ability tweak the building. The new desired height of the tower has increased to 35 stories due to smaller floor plates in the revised building plan.
Summary of what we know about 70 Rainey:
After years without any new condo towers, the past 18 months have given downtown Austin three official announcements: Seaholm, Fifth & West, and The Independent. The only building to see vertical construction so far is Seaholm, but site work has begun on Fifth & West.
Interestingly, those condo towers are located within two blocks of each other, and each is anchored to West Avenue. It would be great to spread some of that excitement to the east of Congress Avenue, and perhaps that will be 70 Rainey… but maybe we’ll just as soon see 99 Trinity, or the three towers proposed by Waller Park Place.
-Jude
It looks like Rainey Street District will be getting a history center! The big question is: where will it go?
On June 12, 2014, Councilman Mike Martinez made a motion, which was amended by Councilman Chris Riley and passed a council vote to essentially read as follows:
Directs the City Manager to accept the donation of the structure formerly located at 93 Rainey St. from Austin Rainey St. D/E/P, LLC, a Delaware, LLC., for use as the Rainey Street History Center.
Here’s the house at 93 Rainey in 2012 (taken from my MEGA Rainey post from 2012) – standing on one of the sites where Dinerstein is building the Millenium Apartments.
The ~1600sf structure as it stands today:
This structure, which will be refurbished using funds from the Rainey Street District Fund, will be placed on a TBD location within the next 180 days.
Currently, these three locations are being considered:
64 Rainey, 700 Cummings, and East Avenue – all pictured below:
There are pros and cons to each of these sites, and the Rainey Neighbors Association will be discussing all the issues, and likely selecting the location THEY endorse (several other stakeholders may need to agree, including the MACC and the Waller Creek Conservancy) on 10/21 at 6:30pm at the Towers of Town Lake Library. If you are an RNA member – you’re welcome to come to the meeting! Otherwise, submit your thoughts on these sites in the comments below!
For more information, download the attached presentation by Austin Parks and Rec: Rainey-Street-House
The latest bike share hub being installed this morning at Davis & Rainey Street. Just in time for SXSW, this is a good choice of location in the neighborhood. Across the street Hotel Van Zandt is under construction.
