Archives for 2009

Downtown Austin Blog Is Growing

Jude Galligan | September 16, 2009 |

DAB reaches 100,000 hits — DAB reaches 100,000 page views!

I learned a new phrase a couple of weeks ago – “hyper-localized”. That’s a fitting description of the Downtown Austin Blog, which surpassed 100,000 hits over Labor Day weekend. Small potatoes for some websites, but this is a fun milestone for a local real estate centric blog like DAB. We’ve been averaging 14,000 page views per month and growing. August was our best month with over 18,000 page views!

Downtown Austin Blog is written by myself, an occasional guest contributor, and regular readers who contribute to the discussion – without many of whom the entire Austin blogosphere would be a lot less interesting. The positive feedback (and constructive criticism) we’ve received from our readers is appreciated more than you imagine.

One day we might decide to shift everything to DowntownAustinBlog.org, but for now please continue to encourage your friends and colleagues to “just google ‘Downtown Austin Blog'”.

Thanks,

Jude

p.s. Have you subscribed to the RSS or email feed?

What's Going To Happen To Little City?

Jude Galligan | September 15, 2009 |

According to TexasWeekly.com and the ABJ, the Texas Public Policy Foundation is under contract to purchase the building located at 916 Congress Ave, aka. Little City Cafe!!!

Little City is a long-established favorite of Congress Ave’s retail/cafe offerings. It’s loss would be frustrating news to those working to revitalize Congress Avenue [back] into a retail destination.

Hey TPPF, there are three empty buildings across the street – 907,909,911 Congress Ave – that are available.

-Jude

For Real This Time: The I-35 Makeover Is Happening

Jude Galligan | September 14, 2009 |

In 2006, neighborhood associations on both sides of the interstate were empowered to develop a concept to enhance East-West pedestrian movement beneath I-35. The vision was to take what is the most trafficked overpass in Austin, and create a landscape that is lighter and smaller in scale than the one currently dominated by the car.

The downtown Austin segment of I-35 was constructed in 1962 and served to physically reinforce the racial divide that East Avenue had historically represented.

Now, the City of Austin leases from the State the land below the I-35 freeway. The area is uninviting to say the least. As part of the makeover, that area will remain parking, while the perimeter and sidewalks connecting East Side to downtown will get something closer to the “Great Streets” treatment including trees, wider sidewalks, and benches.

From Cotera+Reed Architects:

“Fourteen curved and tapered galvanized steel poles will be supported under the freeway deck, and area lighting is attached along the undersides. Individually, the shape of the poles resembles a suspension bridge – re-associating the spot with connecting. Connecting land masses, across an interruption of the landscape, proposing the idea of separation and connecting at the same time. It is intended to be a gesture – a handshake under the freeway.”

Construction is scheduled to begin as early as February 2010.

-Jude

I-35, night perspective — I-35 Makeover, Night Perspective

CITYSIT – An Interactive Urban Art Experience

Jude Galligan | September 11, 2009 |

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO7oo0O1JUU]

As I walked into my office this morning, I noticed in the retail shell space below the Monarch parking garage were several massive chunks of ice surrounding a circle of chairs. There were intermittent jars of water and candles sitting on the long stretch of windows.

As it turned out, this was an installation by CITYSIT.

You go in and sit for 20 minutes. No talking, just absorbing the sounds. Sitting still and shutting my brain off is not something that comes easily, but this was a very cool experience. You can check it out for yourself tonight at 7pm.

-Jude

Warehouse District vs. Capitol View Corridors

Jude Galligan | September 11, 2009 |

Sign at 5th and Bowie providing direction to the Warehouse District

Writer Katherine Gregor presents the story of the Warehouse District in this week’s Chronicle.

The Warehouse District is valuable for two reasons:

1) It’s an established destination in downtown.
2) It’s uniquely positioned outside of the Capitol View Corridors (map)

As Michael McGill astutely pointed out: “this is the sort of all day activity that 6th Street and Red River would kill for…this is the envy… this is what you want… this is what people work so hard to design in…”

From the article…

“The irony is that the district is so at risk because it’s so attractive – people want to do new developments in it and close to it,” said Jacqui Schraad, executive director of the Heritage Society. For example, the planned 18-story Westin Hotel will market itself as a chic “Warehouse District hotel”.

What is being proposed is clearly a taking of property rights, however, ROMA is offering an economic alternative that could potentially enable individual Warehouse District property owners to earn more money by transferring their air rights to other projects. Currently, the adjacent property owners need to work with each other to create an assemblage site large enough to build a high rise. ROMA’s solution appears to eliminate the need for these relationships of necessity and allow individual property owners to cash in on their property without the need to work with their neighbor.

A system of transference of development intensity could effectively put an end to the CURE based system to pursue additional entitlements. Arguably, getting rid of the CURE system would eliminate the potential for backdoor lobbying efforts and could reduce the feasibility costs to developers. Simply put, if you needed more density, you could just purchase it. But, is there a real market for these air rights? Clearly the owners of the Warehouse District properties are not confident that there is.

This will be not an easy decision. IMO, the real culprit is the Capitol View Corridors which artificially inflate and depress the intrinsic value of properties that are either outside or inside of the view corridor, respectively. Were they not to exist, the extreme focus on this small assemblage of land we call the Warehouse District might not be at issue. But, the existence of the Capitol View Corridors is a subject that is political wildfire with the “no growth” opinions who seem to equate “keep Austin weird” with “keep Austin low and sprawling”.

I’ve always believed that you don’t bite off the hand that feeds you, and Downtown Austin has been feeding off the charm of the Warehouse District for years. The Warehouse District is an attractive destination for all of Austin and it’s visitors. If ROMA’s recommendations aren’t adopted, it’s not likely that the Warehouse District will completely disappear, but we can expect it to change. As our community works to create an amazing downtown experience, losing this district, in it’s current form, will take us further from that goal.

-Jude