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Downtown Austin Delivery Services

AG | May 21, 2014 |

Seems like every other week I’m hearing about some slickly marketed new service that will deliver something to my house. Dollar Shave Club, BarkBox, BirchBox, the list goes on and on and on.

Delivery is the new rage and I have to say that I love it. Like, I love it like Ron Swanson loves breakfast food and brunettes.

I’m particularly seduced by services that deliver food to my door. There are three services in particular that I’ve been using (or am about to start using), and all of them make me pretty happy:

Colorado Tower scheduled for launch next month

Jude Galligan | May 28, 2013 |

Despite some ominous rumbling on the horizon that the project could be delayed indefinitely, I’m excited to share the news this week that Cousin’s magnificent Third & Colorado office tower is breaking ground next month.

Cousin’s issued a press release Thursday announcing that the 29-story, 371,000-square-foot office tower will break ground early next month. The building has been christened “Colorado Tower” and is scheduled for near completion by the end of 2014.

The Colorado Tower project has already signed two law firm tenants — Dubois Bryant & Campbell – which now offices in 700 Lavaca — and Scott Douglass & McConnico, which now offices in 600 Congress.

Earlier this year, Austin Towers picked up on the fact that this project was running behind schedule, after Cousins initially said it would break ground last year, due to among other things, a pending zoning change that council approved earlier this year.

A lot of people are forgetting that for the longest time the lot was supposed to be a hotel: an 18-story, 300-room Westin Hotel to be exact.

Who could have predicted back in 2008 when the hotel was first announced, on the foothills of the recession, that here we’d be in 2013 with almost a 90 percent downtown Austin office occupancy rate, a smorgasbord of hotel development and an urban residential market that is bright red hot (we’re talking lightsaber red).

(Conversely, I remember Will Wynn and Brewster McCracken – former Austin council members — hyping an upcoming urban rail election back then. Who would have also predicted that here we’d be in 2013 practically no closer to real mass transit, and being outdone handsomely Houston, Dallas and San Antonio.)

Enough about that, though. Check out these renderings of Colorado Tower!

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