downtown Austin's real estate and neighborhood blog
You’ve heard of Lil’ Wayne? How about Lil’ Leffy? On April 21st, the Austin Chronicle is sponsoring “The Hustle For Mayor” candidate forum at Mohawk in downtown Austin. Will we get to witness Lee ‘lil leffy’ Leffingwell and Brewster ‘Micky Crack’ McCracken grab the mic and spit the illest, most hunker-downest, sustainabilitized, verbal gymnastics ever heard in a mayoral election?
DJ Mel will be breakin’ necks from the tables.
This is happening.
“OMG! All these people moving downtown are complaining about live music!” crap.
According to M1EK, “the people pushing for the extra restrictions on live music outdoors are NOT the people downtown.” Rather, it is the zealous Austin Neighborhood Council groupies. The problem is how this plays out in the media (Jeff Ward) as it is currently en vogue to scorn downtown Austin residents. They are exploiting a good media spin, and are using, as M1EK puts it, “downtown residents as cover – most people living downtown view music as an amenity, not a problem.”
My building is roughly 100ft from Sixth Street. Venue noise is not a problem. Now, if you can get the ambulances and fire trucks to go easy on the siren, that would be nice!
Pricing for the downtown Austin apartment building, the Ashton Austin, is available – Jude Galligan, 512-226-3414, judegalligan [@] gmail.com
Click here for complete Ashton Austin coverage.
People are wondering when the Ashton (formerly “Alta Vida”) will be ready for move in. Hanover’s 259 unit building has been an informational black hole. No pricing, no floor plans, no launch date. Nada. The lack of information keeps us intrigued!
I spoke with a contact at Hanover this morning and was able to dig up a few juicy facts.
1) There will be five penthouse units ranging from 2,527/ft – 3,218/ft
2) No three bedroom units (except for two of the five penthouses)
3) The largest suite is a 2/2.5 + study at 2,200/ft
4) At 880/ft, not including a balcony, the smallest one-bedroom is relatively large
5) Pricing has not been finalized but is expected to be at par with AMLI on 2nd
6) Level seven will feature an amenity deck (pool, fitness, lounge, etc)
7) There are three 1,550/ft live/work units (2bds/1.5ba) on the first floor featuring a garage and access from the ground level
Move in is planned for May 1st! So, we should see pricing and floor plans within 2-3 weeks. If you want to see what the finishes will resemble check out 7riverway.com
-Jude
OK. We did the math. Below is DAB’s analysis of the inventory of condos in Downtown Austin.
776 residences were delivered in 2008
670 +/- units have sold
106 unit surplus.
This is a net absorption of over 600 units in one year. The 360 Condominiums has only 2 units left.
789+/- units under construction in downtown Austin
+/- 350 of the 789 units are under contract
545 +/- units remain in downtown through at least 2013.
There are no projects coming online that are not already under construction. It takes 2-3 years to build a project and it is unlikely a developer will get construction financing for another 12-18 months.
To put things in perspective, Miami area is delivering approximately 60,000 high rise condominiums during this development cycle. Miami MSA is approximately 2,387,000 people. That is a ratio of 1 condo for every 40 Miami MSA residents.
The Austin area is delivering approximately 1565 high rise condominiums during this development cycle. Austin MSA is approximately 1,600,000 people… that is a ratio of 1 new condo downtown for every 1,022 Austin MSA residents. A single project in downtown Miami is larger than the entire number of units being delivered in downtown Austin over a 6 year period!
Over at Austin Contrarian we can find some interesting thoughts on the [poor] location of the proposed Federal Court House. Specifically, I give it up to Miggy for this simple, yet significant, observation:
“Taking a one-block by one-block square of valuable downtown land largely unencumbered by the capital view corridors off the tax rolls permanently doesn’t help Austin at all. This is where density should be targeted and this building is far from helping that goal. Also to say that the bunker-on-three-sides structure is pedestrian unfriendly would be an understatement.”
Also, Miggy brings up another concern about moving the post office to Red River.
“On a final note – the moving of the Post Office to over near Club de Ville and Red River makes no sense to me either. How many office workers will find that location convenient? And how will that dead retail streetfront (or worse-yet – similar suburban parking lot and drive-thru) help the still nascent Red River entertainment district which is already threatened by any number of other forces. I don’t know what the reasoning was but just based on my surface knowledge – they should have kept in the bottom of the Ovation building as planned.”
Andrews Urban and the Post Office own the block of land across from Stubbs. The post office was going to move there in order for Andrews Urban/Novare to build Ovation where the current post office is located. IMHO, Ovation has ZERO chance of being built within the next five years, so hopefully Miggy’s point is moot.
