I spend so much time walking through downtown, I forget how pretty it is to look at from across the river. Hat tip to David Gottlieb!
Pic Of The Week – Downtown Austin At Dusk
Wooldridge Square Park Is Getting A Facelift
Wooldridge Square Park is closed for the next year, or so, as it receives improvements to the irrigation and landscaping.
Amidst a sea of bureaucratic bunk houses, a Malaise Era parking garage, a jail, and a drive-thru Bank of America, the park’s central gazebo and the close Austin History center can still conjure up memories of a shaded and serene sloped park hill.
Wooldridge Square was a part of the original plans for the City of Austin as laid out by Edwin Waller in 1839. It became a dedicated park in 1909 when then-Mayor Wooldridge cleared and drained the site for civic green space. The gazebo in the center of the park was added in 1910 and has a rich history of political speeches and gatherings for State, County and City officials.
The park is recently best known for hosting giant chess, and being the defacto setup for Mobile Loaves & Fishes, which helps feed Austin’s homeless population.
A couple of months ago, I headed over to play giant chess in the evening. Very enjoyable. No safety concerns, personally, but it’s clear that vagrancy keeps the masses at a distance.
If Wooldridge’s challenges can be distilled into three buckets, below is how I would describe them:
1) no surrounding pedestrian-oriented uses (attraction)
2) vagrancy (perception of safety)
3) poor/no irrigation (placemaking, grass)
Within a year, the irrigation should be improved. I understand that alternative placement or better coordination with MLF is being discussed. There’s a higher and better use for that parking garage and Bank of America, and those will eventually be replaced.
This is progress.
Austin Rocks Texas (Across from City Hall) Grand Opening on June 2nd, 2012
Wild About Music on East Sixth Street has a fancy little sister called Austin Rocks Texas (ART), a 1,350 sf retail space at the corner of 2nd and Guadalupe. The store features upscale apparel, jewelry, artwork and other unique items, and is a perfect stop after a concert at ACL.
From the press release: [Read more…] about Austin Rocks Texas (Across from City Hall) Grand Opening on June 2nd, 2012
Fishing Pier Coming to Lady Bird Lake in Rainey Street, Downtown Austin
The focus is on inclusion. That’s what Nicole Harmon of Core Health Foundation, a non-profit spin-off of Core Health (a for-profit facility focusing on rehabilitation of those suffering with brain injuries), tells me. The project is a fishing pier, located on the northern shore of Lady Bird Lake, just south of the Holiday Inn off I-35 in the Rainey Street District. The project has been in the works for over 8-years, but was officially approved in 2010, and construction is expected to be complete in 2013. And while the driver and primary purpose of this project is for [Read more…] about Fishing Pier Coming to Lady Bird Lake in Rainey Street, Downtown Austin
Episcopal Church Site: Finally Reaching For The Heavens?
Back in 2009, the Episcopal Church paid $9.5MM for a 1.6 acre city block bounded by Trinity, Neches, and 7th Street.
The purpose of the site, which is currently a surface parking lot, is widely believed to house their national archives.
The Episcopal Church recently submitted a Capitol View Corridor (CVC) height determination application with the city. This application is the first step in knowing how tall they can build.
2/3 of the site is encumbered by a CVC, so I suspect any building on this site will be capped at a few stories.
The application proposes commercial, mixed-use.
