Austinist is reporting that Travis House could be replaced soon. I haven’t seen plans for what could replace it, but the owners believe it needs to be razed to do whatever it is they might do. Eric Van Hyfte of BOKA Powell architects appealed to the Historic Landmark Commission last night (detail pdf).
The structure currently known as Travis House is sort of downtown Austin obscurity. The building has been vacant for years and was victim of a fire in January. In past this building has served as a YWCA and also the Guadalupe Hotel. Before 1946 the site was the location of a Southwestern Bell garage. I recall while at UT, the building was a halfway house.
Interestingly, directly across the street at the burned out Guadalupe Arts Center, 1705 Guadalupe and 1715 Guadalupe have jointly obtained entitlements for 350 foot height and a 12:1 FAR which translates into a 30 story tower.
It’s my understanding that historic landmarks do nothing to preserve the ‘history’ of a building, only to prevent it from being torn down. If anyone has more information please email me or share in the comments.
-Jude
image links to pdf
Thanks to DANA’s Roger Cauvin for the heads up on this Daily Texan article!
