downtown Austin's real estate and neighborhood blog
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
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
[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
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
The entire Waller Creek District Master Plan can be downloaded here.
The vision for more and safe public spaces along Waller Creek, including park like connectivity from Waterloo Park to Lady Bird Lake, was a primary motivation for choosing to live at the Sabine. When I tell people about Waller Creek, a common response is “Waller Creek… they’re still tryin’ to get that done, huh?”
The Waller Creek Tunnel Project and subsequent improvements to the district represent one of the most significant urban renewal project in Austin. I was appointed to the Waller Creek Citizens Advisory Committee (WCCAC) last month. Since then my understanding of what’s happening with Waller Creek has improved significantly – The Waller Creek Tunnel is on time and on budget and will break ground in late 2010 or early 2011.
At last night’s WCCAC meeting, ROMA delivered a highly compelling draft of a master plan for Waller Creek. While we were only presented with a draft, ROMA’s Waller Creek districting plan creates a vast amount of public space and a Sabine Street promenade is one example of a progressive districting plan as a whole. Sabine Street’s wide and underutilized right-of-ways could be converted into a more pedestrian and bicycle friendly promenade. The promenade would most likely deliver large 30ft+ areas for al-fresco dining, bicycle lanes that connect back into the Waller Creek trail system, and enough room for limited automobile traffic to still get through.
On October 24th, ROMA will present the entire plan at a town hall meeting.
-Jude
