Downtown Austin Blog

downtown Austin's real estate and neighborhood blog

Ashton Austin Pricing

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Ashton Austin: now with pricing!
Ashton Austin: now with pricing!

Pricing for the downtown Austin apartment building, the Ashton Austin, is available – Jude Galligan, 512-226-3414, judegalligan [@] gmail.com. DAB has been covering the Ashton’s obfuscated marketing for months (click to read all posts).  It appears the building is almost ready for prime time.  One-bedrooms are large, ranging in size from 940-1029 ft. A pdf of the pricing can be downloaded here.  For a limited time, the developer is offering two months free on a 12 month lease which effectively reduces the monthly rent by at least $333 per month.

As of today the model units are not open. Judging by the landscaping and the tone of their communications I think it could be as early as this weekend that the model/sales center opens. Expectations are high from tenants who have grown tired of starkly appointed downtown Austin lofts. The photos show a high end finish out, the floor plans are large, and the views are certain to be spectacular… unless you end up staring into 100 Congress. Stay tuned!

-Jude

Political Property

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Using the Travis County Appraisal District’s website, Traviscad.org, I pulled the appraisal values for the homesteads belonging to our city’s politicians. Before I did this, I had a limited knowledge of which neighborhoods our elected officials hail from. For most people their homes are their biggest investment, and I generally believe our politicians are pretty typical.  There is some interesting information contained in these values.   For instance, former Austin Neighborhood Council president Laura Morrison’s Old West Austin property is worth $1,429,485!  I’ve heard through the grapevine that as recently as last year Marc Ott rented in downtown Austin’s AMLI on 2nd, but is currently in Circle C.  Mayor Will Wynn lives with his family in downtown Austin’s Austin City Lofts.  Randi Shade lives in a Clarksville condo.  Brewster McCracken is perhaps renting north of UT at the mixed-use development, the Triangle.  Mike Martinez lives in the Holly district of East Austin (I couldn’t find the record but I know the neighborhood).  Mayor elect Lee Leffingwell calls Highland Park West Balcones Neighborhood home.  Sheryl Cole and her family live in the neighborhood I can best describe as Cherrywood or northern French Place.

See the list after the jump!
[Read more…] about Political Property

Car2go spotted in downtown Austin

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Howdy, youre not from around here, huh?

Yesterday, leaving the office on W 5th, I noticed a car2go branded smart car out front of Austin City Lofts.  Maybe Mayor Will Wynn was getting a test drive?  Earlier this year the Statesman reported the car share initiative would work like this:

“The city will set aside urban-core parking spaces for 200 of Daimler’s “Smart” cars. Rather than paying for the spaces, Daimler will let city employees use the cars for a number of hours that’s equal to the monetary value of the spaces. (That amount hasn’t been determined yet; it will be negotiated over the next few weeks, city officials said.)…The program will start in October and run for six months. Daimler will pay for fuel, maintenance and insurance during that time, said the city’s transportation director, Robert Spillar.”

I’d like to point out that Austin’s first viable car share program, Austin Car Share, was developed assisted by city council candidate elect (!) Chris Riley.

-Jude

[Thanks to Mark for the clarification: Chris Riley was an active board member of Austin Car Share]

Austin's Tale of Two Cities

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Just found this terrific article about how Austin’s growth pattern is driven by the ‘freakonomics’ of Central and Old West Austin.  I didn’t realize who the author was until the end.  It was a nice [but not unexpected] surprise to see that is was authored by Chris Bradford!  Great job, Chris!

Below are two great quotes from the article:

“Families also did not have to flee central Austin to escape dense, overcrowded neighborhoods. The typical central Austin neighborhood is no denser than a typical suburban neighborhood. Most central Austin neighborhoods consist almost entirely of single-family residences. Indeed, in some, nearly 90% of the residential acreage is set aside for single-family housing, with multi-family developments relegated to busy streets. And yard sizes in suburbs are frequently little larger than the yards in the central neighborhoods.”

“Yet there’s an ironic side to this. Alarmed by the decline of families in the city, the same city council that enacted the McMansion ordinance created a new task force a few months later to determine why central Austin has now so few families with children.”