Downtown Austin Districts

Jude Galligan | May 7, 2013 | 1 Comment

Downtown News and Rumor Round-up

Rainey Street District hotel breaking ground next month?

If you’ve been around downtown Austin since 2006, you’ve been hearing about the Hotel Van Zandt.

It was a sister development to the Shore Condos, sharing the northern end of the site. Hotel Van Zandt was initially planned to be a $100 million, 29-story hotel and condo tower. The scope has been reduced to 16 stories and will include just the hotel component.

We’ve heard all of this before. Developers are now telling the Statesman they plan to get going next month. This is the same thing they told the ABJ in March, which is a sign that it is indeed ready to roll.

Hotel Van Zandt was initially planned to be a $100 million, 29-story hotel and condo tower. The scope has been reduced to 16 stories and will include just the hotel component.

Statesman has more

New Travis County courthouse up for debate

The ongoing debate for whether or not Travis County will enter into a deal for a public-private partnership to build a new courthouse downtown could be coming to a head.

Recently, the Statesman profiled some of the issues associated with the project, and on Tuesday the Commissioner Court talked to the finalists for the deal: URS and Broaddus and Associates.

The court did not take a vote when it discussed it at a hearing this past Tuesday, but is taking the issue back up this Tuesday.

The new courthouse could rise 17 stories next to Republic Square. Earlier this year, commissioners decided they will hold a bond election to finance the courthouse, but no date is certain.

If the deal ever falls through, or the public does not approve the bonds, it would put a lot that is not encumbered by capitol view limits back into the private market.

Statesman has more

Austin is a finalist to host the X Games

ESPN announced that Austin is one of four finalists to host the 2014, 2015 and 2016 X Games. The games would be held at the Circuit of the Americas, but without a doubt, we can expect something related downtown. If – of course – Austin ends up taking the cake.

For the record, I think it will.

Austin is competing with Chicago, Detroit, and Charlotte, N.C. I think both COTA and Gov. Perry will roll out the red carpet and offer just as competative package of any tax breaks the other cities and states can offer. From a ticketing and marketing perspective, the folks at ESPN must know that Austin is going to have the best draw among the kids and also know that marketing machines like Nike and Samsung already have the ground troops and past experience to tackle Austin from a marketing perspective, due to SXSW.

ESPN is sending envoys here next month and expects to pick a winner this summer.

KXAN has more

The saga of an expensive parking garage coming to a close?

For you readers who are devotees of downtown palace intrigue, the saga of Whittington v. City of Austin could finally be coming to a close.

The case started almost a decade ago, in relation to the public-private partnership the city got into to build the Hilton next to the convention center. The city seized Harry’s downtown lot and he sued them for it.

After a series of trials, the case made it all the way up to the Texas Supreme Court, which sided with the city.

Got to give it to the man, he knows how to dig in and raise hell. Although, he must have asked himself several times over the past few years: What would that lot have been worth today if the city hadn’t tied it up in litigation 10 years ago?

Maybe now, they will put all of that vacant retail space, which wraps the ground level of the garage, to good use.

ABJ has more

Filed Under: austin news, Railyard District, Rainey Street District

Jude Galligan | May 3, 2013 | 5 Comments

Big News for Rainey Street District

By now you might have read the breaking news that the Sutton Co. is proposing to build a three-tower complex (including a 65 story tower!) across the street from Iron Works BBQ, with a tower that would be taller than the Austonian.

What you may not realize yet is that Rainey Center, the dual tower project that was supposed to encompass up to 50 stories each, and include up to 1,000 apartments and condos, next door to the Lustre Pearl in Rainey Street, is dead as envisioned… BUT will be replaced by a new concept.

Wally Scott and Mac Pike – aka the Sutton Co. – have sold the 2-acre site to subsidiary of the Houston-based Dinerstein Companies. This information was buried in the last paragraph in a blockbuster story the Statesman published about a larger than life deal around the block.

According to information posted over at the SkyscraperPage forum, alleged to be taken from city records, Dinerstein is scrapping the dual tower concept for an eight-story mixed use building with an internal parking garage.

That’s a major let down, IMO. Austin has no shortage of squat beige buildings. Hopefully the new proposal will retain some ‘wow’ factor.

Maybe it just didn’t make sense from a traffic management standpoint to have that much of a draw right off the Cesar Chavez and I-35 access road, and in any case enables Sutton Co. to get capital for an even more inspiring, legacy project.

Still, once people start absorbing this information, it could instill a sense of skepticism about the Sutton Co.’s latest proposal. It wasn’t long ago – after all – that the Statesman broke news about the Rainey Center project (now Dinerstein is reducing the scope), just like it is doing now with the Waller Center project. Even the Statesman’s Shonda Novak — perennial cheerleader of Austin development — put a caveat in the first line her story about Waller Center of “if it happens”.

The details on the Waller Center project are as follows:

$500 million project
3 acres at East Cesar Chavez and Red River streets near Waller Creek.
Condos/Hotel tower – 65 floors
Apartment tower – 35 to 45 floors
Office tower – 17 to 20 floors
Proposed groundbreaking – mid to late 2014.

We’d love to see this one happen and reflect the vision below. It would be a huge boon to downtown, specifically the Waller Creek District. Cheers to ambitious thinking.

IBCGroup_050213 sutton rainey street

Filed Under: downtown austin, Downtown Austin Districts, Rainey Street District, waller creek

Jude Galligan | April 25, 2013 | 1 Comment

Tower Planned for 70 Rainey Street

Details are emerging for Riverside Resources’ planned multi-use tower at 70 Rainey St. across from the MACC.

The firm, which also developed The Whitley and The Crescent, has filed an administrative site plan application to construct 182 multifamily units, and another 3,600 square feet of ground level restaurant and retail space.

The 70 Rainey development, which encompasses the lots between 66-72 Rainey Street, was pursuing incorporating the City owned 64 Rainey Street into their plan, but the neighboring MACC lobbied City Hall last fall to get the land instead.

Initially, the 70 Rainey development, which would share the same alley used by the Shore Condos, ~~and is being financed through Ft. Worth-based Kelly Capital Partners~~ [UPDATE: Kelly Capital Partners is an equity holder, but is not financing the project], was pegged at 31-stories if it could include the 64 Rainey lot.

But until this site plan is approved, and we get some elevations, or something is leaked to the press, we won’t know how many stories this 182-unit project will have.

We can use the Shore condos as a reference, which has 192 units, and is only 22 stories. The sites share a similarly sized footprint and orientation (north-south), so we are probably looking at buildings of comparable dimensions. Accounting for the restaurant/retail on the ground level, I’m going to guess this one ends up around ~25 stories.

***Based on the site clearing I’ve seen over the past week, it looks like multiple food trailers are setting up to use the 70 Rainey Street site as a temporary home until site plan is approved and Riverside is ready to build. (Looks like it’s the United Nations of Food (?) from 95 Rainey Street, making way for the Sutton project)

Filed Under: development, downtown austin, Downtown Austin Districts, Rainey Street District

Jude Galligan | April 2, 2013 | Leave a Comment

Rumors Surround Medical School Downtown

The Austin American-Statesman ran a front page story today teasing a bio-tech innovation district downtown around the new Dell Medical School. (That the story ran one day after The Mohawk issued an April Fools press release lamenting the demise of cool Red River is pretty funny.)

Mohawk shenanigans aside, the Statesman story didn’t really say much new, but it did put ink to paper on a handful of rumors that have been floating around and I had heard, which I’d like to capture for you here.

1) There is universal consensus is that the teaching hospital will be built by Seton’s Brackenridge Hospital. No one with a six-figure salary will confirm it unequivocally, but the key suspect location for the hospital is the parking lot on the south side of the Erwin Center. This site is known as the “Elephant Lot” and is so named for the elephants who call it home when the circus comes to town.

2) The medical school is being proposed to exist atop the site where the tennis courts are now, which is UT land. The medical school will be housed in two buildings: an administrative and classroom space and a research area. Recently, UT hired Boston planning and design firm Sasaki Associates Inc. – which is currently developing an update to the UT-Austin campus master plan – to also develop a medical district master plan.

3) Some people are talking about tearing down the Erwin Center eventually to make room for more medical stuff. Whether this comes to fruition remains to be seen. Where UT would house indoor sports and where older people would go to replay their high school rock years is undetermined. This would perhaps be laid out when UT unveils its updated master plan. At a recent regent’s meeting, President Bill Powers said it was almost ready. (That was before all the drama unfolded and his job appeared in peril, so unveiling the master plan is probably on the back burner for now.)

4) Brackenridge, the current hospital, would not be demolished. Instead the majority of the facility will be re-purposed into things like meetings spaces. A simulated treatment center, used to train nursing students from colleges all over the area, would remain in use at Brackenridge.

5) Something I had not heard before is talk of “straightening out Red River Street, whose current path includes an westward bulge where it intersects with East 15th,” as noted by the Statesman. How this would be paid for is not mentioned and I presume it would be a heavy Public Works project that would have to come out of another city bond measure to fund the job. We’re talking major engineering, not the kind of construction we see for Great Streets downtown.

6) The Statesman also quoted the Mayor as saying that the HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital and the Travis County medical examiner’s office, both of which occupy city-owned land under leases, could be re-purposed.

7) Two things not mentioned in the Statesman story: The medical arts master plan impact on the Waller Creek taxing district, or the impact of Urban Rail on this plan (if it ever goes to a vote and is passed).

8) It must also be said: A medical arts district downtown will continue to drive housing demand in the core for a variety of reasons. For that reason alone, I am for it.

Filed Under: Downtown Austin Districts, Red River District

Jude Galligan | March 19, 2013 | 2 Comments

Plan To Revitalize 6th & Congress Announced, Underwhelms Everyone

Stream Realty Partners has a contract to acquire the downtown block bounded by Congress, Fifth, Sixth and Brazos streets, according to the Austin American-Statesman. Here are the details on what’s planned:

The deal consists of five parcels totaling 2.3 acres at the southeast corner of Congress and Sixth, plus a half-block directly east on Fifth Street between Brazos and San Jacinto Boulevard.
Stream Realty is acquiring the portfolio in a partnership with Wanxiang America Real Estate Group and Diversified Real Estate Capital. Heitman LLC is providing financing.
The site includes the 26-story Bank of America tower. Stream will continue to operate the 256,911-square-foot tower, which is 90 percent leased, as an office building and leave as is.
Vacant 501 Congress building will be remodeled by 2014 into a contemporary five-story building with 112,000 square feet of first-class office space and a rooftop deck.
Existing valet parking garage will be torn down and replaced by 2014 with an eight-story parking garage with 300 spaces and street-level retail space
The site also includes the nine-story Littlefield parking garage with 535 spaces, plus 24 apartments and 30,000 square feet of retail space. By the end of this year, Stream plans to renovate the apartments as well as the retail space, ~~which has been vacant.~~
The half block site on East Fifth Street between Brazos and San Jacinto, which is home to a Bank of America drive through, will be sold for an unknown development.

6th Cong plan

Much of this site is entitled with 25:1 FAR, so it’s a disappointment to see an absence of big plans.

Still, it will be better than the vacant buildings currently occupying the 5th Street block between Congress and Brazos. It’s hard to notice these days, given the amount of foot traffic that passes by this block creating an illusion of activity, but this is a major dead zone within the core.

The glass is half-full, though, and of the changes coming to this block, we’re most excited about street level retail being added where that valet garage is now. So much of the urban experience takes place at eye level within the street-scape.

The street belongs to everyone, whether you are a visiting hipster from Tulsa, Oklahoma in town for ACL, a Bastrop native walking to a lunch appointment, a UT student looking for love on Sixth St. or a family from Bee Caves enjoying downtown on the weekend. Having active storefronts makes downtown feel welcoming and alive, and having them lit at night adds an air of comfort and safety that an inhuman, dark parking garage does not.

This is an exciting time to be watching and writing about downtown Austin. The rate of change and investment is unprecedented and is an incredible maturation of the policy strong Austin mayors like (state Sen.) Kirk Watson and Will Wynn put in place.

-Jude

Filed Under: 6th Street Historic & Entertainment District, Congress Avenue District, downtown austin, Downtown Austin Districts

Jude Galligan | March 8, 2013 | Leave a Comment

Royal Blue Grocery Announces Next Location @ The Whitley

Big news for those living and working on the east side of Congress Ave. Royal Blue proprietor, George Scariano, confirms with DAB that the lease is officially signed with The Whitley!

This will be the locally loved grocer’s fourth location. The 2300 ft store will anchor the Railyard District, and we can expect an opening in July.

The store will be a full blown coffee shop, offering beer & wine, with an on-site kitchen serving baja-style seafood tacos, tacos al pastor, and flattop burgers.

We can’t wait!

Filed Under: around town, austin small business, downtown austin, Railyard District

Jude Galligan | March 6, 2013 | 2 Comments

Signals That Lustre Pearl Is Moving

In response to an application to relocate the structure that is Lustre Pearl, the City of Austin Historic Landmark Commission staff recommendation is to permit the move once a new site is located and approved by staff.

Relocating the structure would free up the CBD zoned dirt for a mixed-use tower on the northern end of Rainey Street.

Opening Lustre Pearl in 2008, Bridget Dunlap was the first to see the opportunity in repurposing Rainey Street’s dilapidated CBD-zoned bungalows into bars.

From the HLC brief…

The house was built c. 1907. The City Directory indicates E.A. Murchison residing at 97 Rainey Street in the first listing for the address in the 1906-07 City Directory; however Mr. Murchison’s listing in the name directory indicates him residing at 1303 E. 12th Street.

The next listing in 1909 indicates physician and surgeon Dr. Samuel H. Haigler residing at the address. He resided there until 1913, after which Mrs. Sara A. Spence, widow of Robert Spense, was the resident and owner until at least 1924. J.C. Sample, a carpenter and his wife Minnie were the next residents until approximately 1933. For the remaining years the house was owned and rented by a series of families, none of which resided at the address for more than a few years at a time. All residents, save Dr. Haigler, were blue collar or “non-professional” workers with occupations such as waiter, dishwasher and janitor. Starting in the late 1940’s surnames of the residents indicate a demographic change from Anglo to Hispanic residents as is typical for addresses in the district. - HLC background info (pdf)

Filed Under: austin history, downtown austin, Rainey Street District

Jude Galligan | March 5, 2013 | 4 Comments

What is and isn’t happening at Seaholm

It has been almost one year exactly since the site plan to begin redevelopment at Seaholm was filed, and still there is no major activity on the site. The lack of apparent progress was reinforced when news broke recently that the city of Rollingwood snagged a Trader Joes before Seaholm.

When Trader Joe’s announced it was moving into Seaholm in 2012, reporters were told that construction could begin that summer and Trader Joe’s would be open this year.

While the Downtown Waste Water Tunnel Project, which has been a big part of Seaholm’s construction delay, is nearing an end of work, there is still a lot that has to get completed with Seaholm plans before we’ll see major construction at the redevelopment.

A number of issues, including tree protection issues, are obstructing site plan approval for Seaholm, and in November 2012, the deadline to resolve the conflicts was pushed back to May this year. It’s worth noting, so as not to be confused, Heritage Trees had in the past been an issue related to the Green Water Treatment plant redevelopment, but that trees are impacting Seaholm is something new.

The new Central Library, which is also part of the redevelopment, is also slow off the mark. It seems engineers filed their site plan without doing a number of basic things first, such as obtaining a capital view corridor determination (which has been filed and is pending). Tree protection issues are also impeding progress at this site. The deadline to clear the site plan is in April, with construction set to begin by fall 2013, with completion in 2016.

At the very least, steady progress seems to be making way on the extension of Second Avenue, over Shoal Creek to West Ave., which will be very important to the site.

This week, City Council will likely approve a request to prepare a staging area for a construction of the library and a project enhancing the Shoal Creek trail, which also adds future access in Seaholm via the new car/bike bridge.

Construction is slated to begin this summer on improvements include completing the gap in the existing Shoal Creek Trail (from 5th to 3rd Streets), constructing the bridge on 2nd, and improving the Shoal Creek bank stabilization and mitigating erosion, as well as other enhancements to the trail.

After spending Saturday morning cleaning up Shoal Creek, as part of Its My Park Day, it’s evident that Shoal Creek could use major improvements. That the new bridge and bank/trail restoration is ramping up is an exciting development in the otherwise lackluster apparent progress related to Seaholm. Have a look below at how it looks today.

Bridge today

Filed Under: Downtown Austin Districts, Seaholm District Tagged With: seaholm

Jude Galligan | March 2, 2013 | 1 Comment

Hotel Van Zandt To Begin Construction This Summer #foolmetwice

If you’ve been around downtown Austin since 2006, you’ve been hearing about the Hotel Van Zandt. It was a sister development to the Shore Condos, sharing the northern end of the site. Hotel Van Zandt was initially planned to be a $100 million, 29-story hotel and condo tower. The scope has been reduced to 16 stories and will include just the hotel component.

“Greg Clay, chief investment officer for JMI Realty, which is developing the Hotel Van Zandt, said his company has applied for building permits and expects to break ground by June on the 16-story, 327-room hotel. It which will be operated by Kimpton Hotels, a San Francisco company, which specializes in chic boutique hotels.

Though JMI has owned the site at Red River and Davis streets since 2006, the project had been stalled by the recession and other factors, but now it’s back on track.” – Austin Business Journal

I’m eager to see this hotel built. We’ve heard this story before, though I’ve heard enough scuttlebutt this time to be optimistic we really will see dirt start turning.

-Jude

[above rendering by WDG Architecture]

hotel-van-zandt-site

Filed Under: austin news, downtown austin, Rainey Street District, Real Estate

Jude Galligan | March 2, 2013 | Leave a Comment

Remainder of Austonian Block Sold

The remainder of the downtown block surrounding the Austonian has been purchased from the Nalle family by World Class Capital Group. There are no immediate plans for the site.

“The site that was purchased — about 1.3 acres — is bounded by Congress Avenue and Second, Third and Colorado streets. It includes a surface parking lot along with the land and building that house the Austin Children’s Museum, which will be relocating to the Mueller development in Northeast Austin, and Compass Learning.” – Statesman

WCCG has acquired several premiere downtown sites over the past couple of years, including Katz Deli, Spaghetti Warehouse, and the warehouse at 97 Trinity (across Cesar Chavez from the Convention Center).

Filed Under: austin news, Congress Avenue District, downtown austin, Real Estate