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Girls Night Out – Things to Do in Downtown Austin

AG | December 29, 2013 |

Note: This evening’s itinerary also works for date night!

I like to do a group outing with girlfriends once every week or two, but sometimes we get into a rut – where we are doing the same things, going to the same places, etc. So, for 2014, I’ve made a commitment to try and mix things up a little (nothing too crazy) and try to do something a little different each time we get together. Last night was our first night since the holiday madness, and me and gals decided to hit up the northern edge of Congress near the Capitol – frankly, a seeming no man’s land in the evenings.

Me and some of my lady friends enjoying culture at The Contemporary. — Me and some of my lady friends at the beginning of girls night. At The Contemporary.

Stop 1 – 6pm: The Contemporary – The Jones Center at 7th and Congress

downtown-austin-contemporary-3 — An artistic shot of the staircase at The Contemporary – The Jones Center. Photo by Lindsey Strobel.

For a steal at $5, you can get in to The Contemporary – Jones Center, and view the exhibitions on site (apparently, your receipt gets you [Read more…] about Girls Night Out – Things to Do in Downtown Austin

Last Minute Christmas Gifts You Can Buy Downtown

AG | December 21, 2013 |

Christmas is in four days, y’all. If you want to live dangerously – you can try doing your last minute shopping online and cross your fingers that it gets shipped to you in time OR you can go to the mall and get something completely lackluster, but why risk it?

You can pick up unique gifts right here in downtown without biting your nails about when it will arrive. One of the many benefits of shopping local.

But, you say, I don’t have the time to visit a lot of unfamiliar stores, look through all their wares, and make a decision. Never you fear – DAB is here! I’ve done a little of the heavy lifting for you, and below provided you a curated list of some cool shops and some cool stuff they’ve got so you can run in, get a special gift, and run out.

REMEMBER – Check the websites for the store hours! If you are unsure about something, probably also a good idea to call ahead!

My list, of course, is not exhaustive – if you know of a cool downtown / downtown-adjacent shop – feel free to tell us in the comments below!

Waller Park Place Submits Site Plan for 3 Towers

Jude Galligan | November 25, 2013 |

At ~1,400,000 square feet Waller Park Place, a three tower mixed-use plan is the largest private development ever proposed in downtown Austin (correct me in the comments if I’m wrong). It’s the vision of the Sutton Company, who formally filed their site plan approval application with the City of Austin last week.

Back in September, Downtown Austin Blog first revealed the concept for the 3 acre tract stretching from Cesar Chavez to Davis Street, hugging Waller Creek. Then it was being called Waller Center and seemed really to be just a conceptual vision.

wallerparkplacesiteplan1 — Birds eye view shows planned orientation of three towers along Waller Creek

Below is what we know (note these numbers have gone up since Waller Center was announced in September and could still change)

Tower A – Office, 25+ stories, on the corner of Red River and Cesar Chavez
Tower B – Apartments, 50+ stories, internal on the site
Tower C – Hotel/Condo, 40+ stories, at Red River & Davis
Target FAR is 10:1
The architect is the IBI Group
No phasing is contemplated – all three towers built simultaneously
The site is part of the Waller Creek TIF district

With Block 1 (tbd) anticipated, and Trinity Tower (tbd) being conceptualized, Waller Park Place would be the last opportunity in downtown Austin for waterfront development with protected lake views.

WallerParkPlaceCrudeMassing5 — Our own crude drawings showing how the new towers could fit into the skyline

Above and below are a couple of crude massing-drawings I made for each tower to help view the relative dimensions and heights of the three towers, and to help us see how these buildings will fit into the skyline.

WallerParkPlaceCrudeMassing3 — Looking south – our own crude drawings showing how the new towers could fit into the skyline

Proposed three-tower Waller Park Place at Red River & Cesar Chavez

List of Google Fiber Proposed “Community Connection” Sites Released

Fred Schmidt | November 20, 2013 |

In an update to the story below… Austin City Council elected to postpone adoption of the List of 100 Community Connection Sites until its Dec. 12th meeting saying they wanted to review and tweak the list some more with Google. KUT has more on Council activity here.

Also floating around out there in the Fibersphere is this post from Google Fiber Chief, Mark Strama, that discusses how the construction process is being envisioned as it makes its way around the city starting sometime mid 2014.

ORIGINAL STORY – Here is a link to the PDFs of the LIST & Council RESOLUTION of Proposed Google Fiber Community Connection Sites coming before City Council tomorrow, November 21st.

And here are those sites neatly MAPPED courtesy of KUT.

After spending only about five minutes reviewing the list, some inexplicable glaring omissions would include:

University of Texas – the 40 acres and other facilities like the Pickle research campus, ATI, IC2, etc.
Austin Community College – all of their campuses and, in particular, the new Highland Center that will be a major central city magnet for the tech and creative industries over the next 5+ years.
Austin Studios – film and production facilities on East 51st St
Hospitals in our emerging health care services growth cluster
…and no doubt much more!

How is this possible? These are all mega bandwidth users and fit the criteria for inclusion in the Community Connectedness program of public service locations intended for free Fiber service. St. Edward’s, Huston-Tillotson, Concordia are all on there – appropriately – but not UT or ACC. Seriously?

Trinity Tower: Planning a 39 Story, 350 Unit Highrise

Jude Galligan | November 12, 2013 |

Last year we discovered planning efforts for an apartment tower with the working name of “Trinity Place.” The forlorn metal building on the corner of Trinity and Cesar Chavez was acquired by World Class Capital Group.

Since then, there hasn’t been a peep out of the site leaving many of us wondering what would happen there. We’ve now discovered some proof-of-life based on public records filed by the engineering team.

99trinity_current2 — corner of Trinity @ Cesar Chavez

The name “Trinity Place” has been scrapped, it is now dubbed “99 Trinity Tower” and is being proposed as a mixed-use residential skyscraper seven stories taller than the neighboring Four Season Residences.

The applicant is proposing a 39-story tower with ~14,000 square feet of restaurant on the ground level. Those are unchanged specs from last year. Above that, the first 8 floors will be dedicated for parking, with the remaining floors being dedicated to about 350 residential units.

Even with the Lakeside Apartments to the south, the structured parking garage will allow clear lake views for most of the residential units above.

The project is proposing Great Streets standards along Trinity St., and to build a hike and bike trail to connect to the existing Lady Bird Lake Trail.

While we know what is being proposed, it still remains to be seen if it will come to fruition in the end. The applicant is trying to nail down the base floor-to-area ratio (FAR) provided by the zoning, and navigate restrictions within the Waterfront Overlay “North Shore Central” district and will have to wait for the city, which could take some time if history serves as a guide.

The ball is rolling on this site. The demolition permit was issued to scrape the dilapidated metal structure for whatever lands there. We are excited to see more.

***Below, DAB has mocked up a building envelope showing [extremely crudely!] how a 39 story building could fit onto the site, and how it would add to downtown Austin skyline.

99trinity_massing_crude — a crude massing by DAB of how a 39 story building would fit on the 99 Trinity site

99trinity_massing_crude2 — At 39 stories, the tower would be taller than the neighboring Four Seasons Residences

Demolition Begins For Dinerstein Development

Jude Galligan | October 30, 2013 |

Snapped a pic this afternoon showing that demolition is well under way along East Ave for the 9 tract assemblage which will host a Dinerstein apartment development, expected to be called Millenium Rainey (aka Rainey Center).

Art in Downtown Austin – The Art-o-mat®

AG | October 22, 2013 |

I see this quirky little machine every time I walk in Whole Foods HQ downtown to get a healthy helping of freshly made vegetable juice. But I’m usually in too much of a hurry to pay much attention to it. I kinda always knew what it was, just never *really* looked at it. However, I had a few seconds the other day and I FINALLY took a closer look and was just as charmed as I always thought I would be!

It’s a vending machine for reasonably priced art ($5!)! Yay!

According to their website:

The inspiration for Art-o-mat® came to artist Clark Whittington while observing a friend who had a Pavlovian reaction to the crinkle of cellophane. When the friend heard someone opening a snack, he had the uncontrollable urge to have one too.

In June 1997, Clark was set to have a solo art show at a local cafe, Penny Universitie in Winston-Salem, N.C. He used a recently-banned cigarette machine to create the first Art-o-mat®. It was installed along with 12 of his paintings. The machine sold Clark’s black & white photographs mounted on blocks for $1.00 each.

The show was scheduled to be dismantled in July 1997. However, owner Cynthia Giles loved the machine and asked that it stay permanently. At that point, it was clear that involvement of other artists was needed if the project was going to continue. Cynthia introduced Clark to a handful of other local artists and the group Artists in Cellophane (AIC) was formed.

These little machines are all over the nation, with four locations in Austin (they are currently in Whole Foods Global HQ on Lamar, Whole Foods @ Arbor Trails, Whole Foods in Bee Cave, and the Mercury store in the 2nd Street District – Whole Foods @ The Domain is in the works). I LOVE this concept because I think these little pieces of art make great gifts, and are a way better way to spend $5 than on a coke and a couple of candy bars or useless pieces of junk that you may get from other vending machines.

I was so intrigued that I just had to find out more. So, I got in touch with the owner of the concept, Clark Whittington. First off, he had only positive things to say about Austin, which is not surprising in the least. He says that Mercury was the first venue in Austin and they’ve been there about 6 years or so – he says that Mercury has been great to work with. Whole Foods then contacted him and has since taken the concept under their wing, which he says has taken the concept to a whole new level.

He also told me that, even though the machines are throughout the US, there are several Austin-based artists who have work in the Art-o-mats. Here’s the list of current Austin-based artists:

Deborah Abbott
Marilyn Kirk
Jon Lawrence
Donna Toutin
Gabrielle Toutin

Clark says that the real mission of the project is to promote artists. They have about 120 machines and about 300 or so participating artists. He describes the concept as the balance of art versus commerce.

I asked him how the concept has grown over the years. How it had started from one machine in a coffee shop in Winston-Salem to 120 machines across the nation. Here’s what he said:

I don’t really contact people because when I do I get treated like I’m selling vinyl siding, so I wait until I hear from people and then go from there. We’re an art project – it’s not the best business model. It’s really weird how art centers and museums – if I pitch someone – they just start crunching numbers. Lots of times, businesses like Whole Foods and Mercury understand that there’s more too it than every little nickel and dime. Art-o-mat is not pretentious – we are reaching out to everyone, everyone is invited to participate.

I just want to share this with the world – with people that do get it. The last thing I’d want to do is expand in a way that doesn’t mesh with what we’re doing. We have to be calculated and relaxed with how we do things. Artists and hosts have to find us on their own.

Logistically, every machine is owned by the studio – not only to control the quality of inventory – but because, at the end of the day, this represents Clark’s livelihood. There are a few collectors that own their machine, but most are on a lease. Then the host buys art from Art-o-mat on invoice, as needed. Clark works with artists to curate and distribute the art for the machines.

Clark says they are in need of artists, especially Texas artists. If you, or someone you know, has an interest in either hosting a machine or providing art for the machine – you can visit Art-o-mat’s contact page on their website. He seems to be pretty responsive. Want to see some amazing samples of the type of art work in the machines? Visit their Flickr page.

The Most Insane Private Railcar You’ve Ever Seen Visits Downtown Austin

AG | October 18, 2013 |

Jude and I ride the Amtrak Texas Eagle from Austin to Little Rock at least once a year to visit my family.

We get a private cabin and find train travel to be a great alternative to the hassle of air travel – the slower pace IS the luxury. We bring several books and just enjoy a relaxing day of reading and appreciating the scenery.

But, DAAAAAAMMMMNNN! – Now that I’ve seen Patron Billionaire John Paul DeJoria’s private passenger railcar up close and personal, while enjoying sips of $600/bottle Patrón Burdeos and noshing on delicious tex-mex cuisine, every single other travel experience I’ve ever had pales in comparison. Shout out to Michael Tashnick (local hero and owner of the best Austin sports bar) for extending the invite to us.

The railcar, originally built in the 1920s and owned by DeJoria since 1996, has been lodged at the Amtrak station just to the west of downtown Austin since last week (if you live at The Spring Condos in downtown Austin and face west – you may have seen it through your window), and last night Patrón held a special, intimate gathering to promote their fine, fine liquor and show off The Patrón Tequila Express. I ate to my heart’s content, took a ton of pictures (including one with the billionaire himself – I die!), and reveled in all the cool stuff (special things happening all the time, that don’t make it to the mainstream) that happens in Downtown Austin!

I think the pictures speak for themselves! (Many thinks to friend and Downtown Austin Neighborhood Association President Mitchell McGovern for sharing some of his pics, too!). Just FYI, this was pretty much Jude and I’s reaction faces the whole time we were in the train:

Gallery after the jump…. [Read more…] about The Most Insane Private Railcar You’ve Ever Seen Visits Downtown Austin

DAB Profile: Chuck Smith, Restaurateur

Julia Bass | October 16, 2013 |

Downtowner Chuck Smith is a lover of history, a proponent of Texas charm and knows how to create spaces in Austin that keep people coming back. The restaurateur is warm and welcoming, and loves Austin for its “energized people and positive vibes.”

Smith is one of the creative minds behind the Moonshine Patio Bar & Grill, located at 4th and Red River. Architecture and travel are important to Smith, who would rather read a book on urban spaces than watch the Food Network, and loves visiting small coastal communities with his family.

“I’m a big fan of the coast, and small communities that are designed for mingling and a back-to-basics lifestyle,” he said.

But Moonshine, Smith shared, is less about “other things seen,” and is a result of its own history and what it was. A hotbed of trade and commerce in the late 1880s, the mansion that now houses the best brunch in Austin and a “culture of comfort” is what Smith describes as a place that “calls to all.”

Along with cofounder Larry Perdido, Smith wanted to instill that “back-to-basics” vibe, which tells a good story and speaks to the people of Austin. He and his team have managed to do this for 10 years this month at Moonshine.

Smith said giving back to the community is a major reason for his restaurants’ growth and success downtown, where he is known as a generous supporter of many community-driven causes.

“I can’t give a number, but we pretty much say yes to just about every fundraiser that approaches us. It’s important for us to build community in that way, and contribute to those groups.”

For the future of his businesses and Downtown Austin, Smith said he hopes that amid the city’s growth and change people will still “maintain that Texas charm of looking each other in the eye and giving friendly nods as we pass.”

No matter what the future brings for the city, downtowners can be rest assured they’ll find those “positive vibes” at the Moonshine when Smith is around. He said that Austin is a city where people are thriving and succeeding, but we can’t loose the character that makes the city and its people unique. When asked why he loves the restaurant business, Smith said he values the friendships he has made and the people he has been able to bring together, and has even seen employees marry and start families together. “It’s a blessing,” he said.

Claim to Fame: One of the first 3 people to paddleboard in Austin. “People looked at me like I was crazy…I have a custom wooden paddleboard from Talking Fish.”

Favorite Band: U2. “I love their message and what they stand for.”

Favorite Book: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. “This book was that groundwork for me in creating a culture in my business.

Downtown Favorite: Easy Tiger. “I absolutely love what those guys are doing!”