Jude Galligan

Nueces Bike Boulevard/Local Access Street Stakeholder Meeting

Jude Galligan | January 12, 2010 |

Downtown Austin Blog is in support of the Nueces Bike Boulevard. Show your support for a more walkable and pedestrian urban core by attending this event.

The City of Austin invites you to share your thoughts on a potential Nueces Bicycle Boulevard/Local Access Street at two upcoming meetings:

January 13: In response to stakeholder feedback, this meeting will include a discussion on the pros and cons of Rio Grande Street as compared to Nueces Street as a Bicycle Boulevard/Local Access Street.

February 24: City staff will present the results of traffic data analyses (This meeting was originally scheduled for 1/27).

Both meetings will be held at Pease Elementary School, 1106 Rio Grande St, from 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.

You can learn more about the project at the City of Austin Bicycle website.

Please contact Jason Fialkoff via email or at (512) 974-7060 or with any questions or concerns.

Thank you,
Downtown Austin Alliance

The Shore Condos Closeout

Jude Galligan | January 11, 2010 |

Perhaps in light of the upcoming Sabine auction, The Shore Condos is aggressively working to closeout their sales program. We just received a note from sales office: eight units remain and discounts range from 10-25% off of original asking prices. A large 1bd + study on the 18th floor can be purchased for $243,750. This same unit would have been offered at $325,000 in late 2008.

A pdf of the remaining units and pricing can be downloaded here.

DAB readers will recall that 2009 was a great year for the Shore, as they quietly discounted and sold nearly 75 units over this past summer. In fact, in November, we closed on our new space at the Shore [we’ve leased our beloved 1bd at the Sabine]. The construction quality is outstanding, and the proximity to Rainey Street and the trail cannot be beat.

Downtown Austin Alliance Getting New Motto?

Jude Galligan | January 11, 2010 |

[UPDATE: Thanks to the DAA for the clarifying point that this was simply the title of the annual report and is not going to become the new motto.]

“Downtown: As Austin As It Gets” could be replaced with “Downtown: Everyone’s Neighborhood”

This is what appeared on the DAA’s annual report (pdf).

I think I understand the DAA’s motivation for a new tag line. It reaches out. It acknowledges [and I agree] that downtown Austin is different and lots of people use downtown. The new tag line is a reminder that downtown respects input from the entire city.

BUT, once neighborhoods outside of the urban core decide what is NOT best for them, then whatever that is gets deflected back into downtown, de facto. Calling downtown “Everyone’s Neighborhood” leaves downtown as the catchall and invites less progressive neighborhoods to continue to ignore the environmental and economic need for density, transit, and social services in their own backyard.

Amazing Photo Of Downtown Austin At Night

Jude Galligan | January 8, 2010 |

This photo wast taken and posted by Hairysun at SkyscraperPage. It’s really an amazing theme and is something completely new. I think the moonlight was poking through the clouds, but from this angle it also looks as if the Austonian’s “beacon” is breaking through the the low cloud base – very Gothamish. Vantage point is Butler Park. Cool! 🙂

The U-Haul Indicator

Jude Galligan | January 8, 2010 |

My colleague, Simon Cawley, shared this with me. The U-Haul indicator is a simple test of migration patterns in the U.S. Put simply, it costs more to rent a U-Haul moving truck when the destination city is more popular than the origination city.

So what does it cost to leave Las Vegas?

Try $1,880 if you want to rent a 26-foot U-Haul truck, fill it with your worldly goods, and drive it to San Antonio. (In these comparisons, Nov. 3 was selected as the moving date.) But if you wanted to leave San Antonio (August unemployment rate: 7%) and move to Las Vegas, it would cost you only $437 for the same equipment.

Want to move from Chicago (9.7% unemployment) to Houston (8.4% unemployment)? It will cost you $1,970. But it will cost only $449 to make the trip from Houston to Chicago.

Los Angeles (11.8% unemployment) to Houston was $2,051, while Houston to Los Angeles was only $555.

Not surprisingly, there is a significant Texas premium. 🙂

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