downtown austin

News & Rumor Roundup: Bike Share Delayed

Jude Galligan | May 22, 2013 |

Bike Share delayed?

Sadly, it looks as if the bike share program in Austin is hitting some unexpected delays.

KUT reported “the program has seen complications, and that a launch planned for this spring– which would’ve coincided with May as National Bike Month – will be delayed.”

I’ve heard that some people who work at the city disagree with the KUT story, but the fact of the matter is this program – after a flurry of news and forward momentum – appears stuck in the mud. The city has not yet released a map of where the bike share kiosks will be installed yet, let alone what the timeline is for installing the kiosks.

KUT has more

Dell Medical School will reshape NE corner of downtown

Likely you caught a whiff of news about the UT masterplan for its Austin campus, and the attached medical district, which will house the Dell Medical School. The plan has been officially approved by the Board of Regents, and will transform the northeast portion downtown for generations to come.

Among the top things likely to come up at a dinner party, which you should know:

The Dell Medical School is expected to open in summer 2016.
Phase I would require the replacement of the Penick-Allison Tennis Center.
Within five years the UMCB (University Medical Center Brackenridge) will be demolished.
Within six to 15 years the Erwin Center will be demolished.

All the important points have been summarized over on Austin Towers, along with a collection of renderings and maps.

Austin Towers has more

Truluck’s expanding downtown

Truluck’s, one of the anchors of downtown’s Warehouse District, is investing more than $2 million to add a third story.

This follows a trend of reinvestment and development of properties within the Warehouse District. Work is going on now, for example, at the building that housed The Spaghetti Warehouse Restaurant for decades.

Sometimes, it is easy to get fixated on the mega projects downtown, but this is a reminder that a lot of smaller projects are underway too.

Austin Business Journal has more

Wells Fargo teardown underway at 15th Street

As a sign of the increasing residential density of downtown, Wells Fargo has destroyed it’s drive through bank on the corner of 15th and Rio Grande, and instead plans a full service lot there.

In place of the relic 800-square-foot drive-thru center, Wells Fargo plans to build a 4,000 square foot full-service branch, with four drive through bays and 20 parking spots.

Wondering why that block was never developed? Oddly enough, back in the 1970s and again in the 80s, the city entered into a restrictive covenant with the former property owners to limit any use of that lot to a drive-thru bank – it had been zoned for office and then CBD, but any use outside office was limited to a drive thru. Odd.

First Phase of Green Water Construction Moving Forward?

Jude Galligan | May 15, 2013 |

Move over, Seaholm! The other massive redevelopment on Cesar Chavez, the Green Water Treatment Plant Redevelopment, is rumbling to life!

Adding to the seemingly endless list of construction occurring downtown, it looks the Green Water Treatment Plant construction could be getting underway very soon.

A site plan for a high-rise apartment on “Block 1” (110 San Antonio) – possibly climbing 38 stories – has been turned into City Hall for the lot just west of the Silicon Labs building. It’s another exciting moment for downtown Austin, and the culmination of years of “wait and see” from guys like me, who watched these project move at a glacial pace after the economy tanked in 2009.

2011 RENDERING OF VIEW FROM SEAHOLM INTAKE

It was way back in 2008 that Trammel Crow won the bidding process to redevelop the site, and another five years before it hammered out a deal with the city.

On May 25, 2012 the Austin City Council approved an agreement with a development team led by the Trammell Crow Company to redevelop the site with several buildings up to 30 stories tall. The project will have 1.75 million square feet of development, including 826 apartments, 456,000 sq. ft. of office space, a 200 room hotel and 82,000 sq. ft. of retail (most along an extension of the 2nd Street District).

GreenWater2 — 2011 RENDERING OF PROJECT SITE

The project hit another, unexpected, snag when a dust-up occurred over seven heritage trees that are on the site. There were some concerns that the city was applying double standards by not making the developer follow the Heritage Tree ordinance, which the city council enacted in 2010 after Trammel Crow had its plans, but before it inked a deal with the city.

In the end, Trammel Crow agreed to save the trees, but would have to sacrifice about 67,000 square feet of leasable area, and the city agreed to hand over $1.7 million to compensate them, according to the Austin Business Journal. [h/t Chris Bradford, see comments]

We have yet to see clearly how a reduction of almost 70,000 square feet will impact the scope of the development.

Back in 2012, the per block details were posted on the SkyscraperPage forum:

Block 23 Office
28 floors
566,074 gross square feet
524,143 usable square feet

Block 1 Residential (SITE PLAN FILED)
38 floors
682,120 gross square feet
531,700 usable square feet

  Block 185 Residential
39 floors
436,975 gross square feet
336,600 usable square feet

  Block 188 Hotel
19 floors
245,643 square feet

Big News for Rainey Street District

Jude Galligan | May 3, 2013 |

By now you might have read the breaking news that the Sutton Co. is proposing to build a three-tower complex (including a 65 story tower!) across the street from Iron Works BBQ, with a tower that would be taller than the Austonian.

What you may not realize yet is that Rainey Center, the dual tower project that was supposed to encompass up to 50 stories each, and include up to 1,000 apartments and condos, next door to the Lustre Pearl in Rainey Street, is dead as envisioned… BUT will be replaced by a new concept.

Wally Scott and Mac Pike – aka the Sutton Co. – have sold the 2-acre site to subsidiary of the Houston-based Dinerstein Companies. This information was buried in the last paragraph in a blockbuster story the Statesman published about a larger than life deal around the block.

According to information posted over at the SkyscraperPage forum, alleged to be taken from city records, Dinerstein is scrapping the dual tower concept for an eight-story mixed use building with an internal parking garage.

That’s a major let down, IMO. Austin has no shortage of squat beige buildings. Hopefully the new proposal will retain some ‘wow’ factor.

Maybe it just didn’t make sense from a traffic management standpoint to have that much of a draw right off the Cesar Chavez and I-35 access road, and in any case enables Sutton Co. to get capital for an even more inspiring, legacy project.

Still, once people start absorbing this information, it could instill a sense of skepticism about the Sutton Co.’s latest proposal. It wasn’t long ago – after all – that the Statesman broke news about the Rainey Center project (now Dinerstein is reducing the scope), just like it is doing now with the Waller Center project. Even the Statesman’s Shonda Novak — perennial cheerleader of Austin development — put a caveat in the first line her story about Waller Center of “if it happens”.

The details on the Waller Center project are as follows:

$500 million project
3 acres at East Cesar Chavez and Red River streets near Waller Creek.
Condos/Hotel tower – 65 floors
Apartment tower – 35 to 45 floors
Office tower – 17 to 20 floors
Proposed groundbreaking – mid to late 2014.

We’d love to see this one happen and reflect the vision below. It would be a huge boon to downtown, specifically the Waller Creek District. Cheers to ambitious thinking.

Bank of America Drive Through at 5th & San Jacinto to Shut Down… What Will Replace It?

Jude Galligan | May 2, 2013 |

One of the most underutilized development sites in downtown Austin is about to transform.

Categorize this discovery as random: because I am a customer of Bank of America, I received a letter stating the drive through at 5th & San Jacinto will be shutting down. That’s as official as it gets!

This harks back to March, when Stream Realty has contracted to purchase Tom Stacy’s mega-assemblage extending from Congress to San Jacinto.

Another parcel — a half block site on East Fifth Street between Brazos and San Jacinto — will be sold once Stream closes on the purchase. Sallis said there’s been interest from developers looking to build hotel, apartment and mixed-use projects there. Source: Austin American Statesman

The intersection of 5th & San Jacinto is anchored by Eddie V’s restaurant, the Brazos Lofts, and a new hotel is expected to break ground this year. Directly across San Jacinto, White Lodging is planning a 17 story, 326 room “Westin Austin Downtown.”

The Bank of America drive through can be seen in the bottom right of the image below.

Downtown News and Rumor Round-up

Jude Galligan | April 28, 2013 |

Leasing ABIA = urban rail?

Getting better public transportation is so centric to the future of downtown, it always surprises me that there are not more occasions to write about it. In Austin, our current plan is called “urban rail” and it has almost become this amorphous type of buzz-word over the years. If you asked ten people “what is the urban rail plan?” I bet you would get 10 answers (or more likely you’d get seven blank stares and three answers).

The long-short of urban rail is this: It is a project the old Austin mayor (Will Wynn) pitched for downtown, and one that our current mayor (Lee Leffingwell) keeps bringing up, but no other council members, or any of our main business groups, ever seem to get very vocal about.

A little while ago, the Statesman reported that City Council was hot to trot to get something passed by voters before we switch our council makeup from seven-at-large members, to ten district members and one at-large, but we have still not seen very much action.

Suddenly, this week, the Statesman reported that Mayor Leffingwell is proposing a plan to lease out our airport, aka “ABIA”, in order to fund urban rail.

Statesman has more

KUT did a follow up that notes airports in Chicago and Puerto Rico have leased their airports, but six others abandoned the privatization idea after pursuing it.

Downtown adds more retail

Toy Joy, one of the coolest shops in the city, has been up near UT for years, announced it is moving to downtown, just below the Violet Crown on Second Street.

Recently another shop, Consuela, opened up at Ninth and Congress.

This is exciting news for downtown, because retail shopping – regardless of our personal preferences – is a vital component to a thriving urban ecosystem.

Culture Map has more on Toy Joy

Statesman has more on Consuela

Eighth and Neches hotel to be eight stories

I’ve done a couple posts about this hotel, but we finally have some specs on the new hotel across from Stubbs on Red River and 8th St.

The developer plans demolish the existing 117-space (hideous-looking) garage and build three stories of parking into the sloped lot with a five-story hotel above.

The $30 million project would bring about another 200 rooms to downtown. Given that this site is just a few blocks south of the proposed medical school, I think it is a smart play.

ABJ has more