Downtown Austin Districts

Royal Blue Grocery Announces Next Location @ The Whitley

Jude Galligan | March 8, 2013 |

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!

Signals That Lustre Pearl Is Moving

Jude Galligan | March 6, 2013 |

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)

What is and isn’t happening at Seaholm

Jude Galligan | March 5, 2013 |

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.

Hotel Van Zandt To Begin Construction This Summer #foolmetwice

Jude Galligan | March 2, 2013 |

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]

Remainder of Austonian Block Sold

Jude Galligan | March 2, 2013 |

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).