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Rainey Street District Welcomes Salvation Pizza… and More

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The Rainey Street District continues to evolve, most recently with the opening of Salvation Pizza at the base the Skyhouse Apartments, and across from Milago condos. And another pizza is apparently underway just down the block at 78 Rainey.

When Skyhouse apartments opened last year, their first retail tenant was the enormously popular Royal Blue Grocery. For months a TABC permit application donned the window and residents wondered when Salvation Pizza would finally open.

Jude and I stopped in the other day and enjoyed a white pizza and it was very, very [Read more…] about Rainey Street District Welcomes Salvation Pizza… and More

70 Rainey Signals Condo Tower

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The popular Rainey Street district may host the next condo tower to be announced in downtown Austin.  Known simply as 70 Rainey, the four lot assemblage, currently occupied by several mobile food trucks, is situated just east of the Mexican American Cultural Center.

While we’ve been expecting a tower on this site, it is noteworthy that 70rainey.com indicates the tower will deliver as condos for sale, rather than previous reports of a multi-family tower with apartments for rent.

70-rainey-map
Outline of the site, and adjacent 64 Rainey owned by the MACC

The site has been in play for several years and has seen several owners.

The current owner, Freemont Holdings, LLC – a related company of Manhattan developer Sackman Enterprises, acquired the site last year from local Riverside Resources.

City of Austin filings indicate that the site plan might not be fully fleshed out.  As of last October engineers are seeking 200 residences, for a total project size of 531,806 sf.

This is a nuanced change from what the project was originally entitled for, and new City of Austin ordinances for density in Rainey Street could hand-tie the developers ability tweak the building.  The new desired height of the tower has increased to 35 stories due to smaller floor plates in the revised building plan.

Summary of what we know about 70 Rainey:

  • Number of dwellings = 200 (86 1bd, 110 2bd, 4 penthouse)
  • Building size = 531,806 SF
  • Number of stories = 35 (tbd.)
  • Number of parking spaces = 478
  • Amenities include: onsite restaurant, 24 hour concierge, pool, gym, great streets sidewalks

After years without any new condo towers, the past 18 months have given downtown Austin three official announcements: Seaholm, Fifth & West, and The Independent.  The only building to see vertical construction so far is Seaholm, but site work has begun on Fifth & West.

Interestingly, those condo towers are located within two blocks of each other, and each is anchored to West Avenue.  It would be great to spread some of that excitement to the east of Congress Avenue, and perhaps that will be 70 Rainey… but maybe we’ll just as soon see 99 Trinity, or the three towers proposed by Waller Park Place.

-Jude

The Rainey Street House

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It looks like Rainey Street District will be getting a history center!  The big question is: where will it go?

On June 12, 2014, Councilman Mike Martinez made a motion, which was amended by Councilman Chris Riley and passed a council vote to essentially read as follows:

Directs the City Manager to accept the donation of the structure formerly located at 93 Rainey St. from Austin Rainey St. D/E/P, LLC, a Delaware, LLC., for use as the Rainey Street History Center.

Here’s the house at 93 Rainey in 2012 (taken from my MEGA Rainey post from 2012) – standing on one of the sites where Dinerstein is building the Millenium Apartments.

The ~1600sf structure as it stands today:

93-rainey-austin

This structure, which will be refurbished using funds from the Rainey Street District Fund, will be placed on a TBD location within the next 180 days.

Currently, these three locations are being considered:

64 Rainey, 700 Cummings, and East Avenue – all pictured below:

There are pros and cons to each of these sites, and the Rainey Neighbors Association will be discussing all the issues, and likely selecting the location THEY endorse (several other stakeholders may need to agree, including the MACC and the Waller Creek Conservancy) on 10/21 at 6:30pm at the Towers of Town Lake Library. If you are an RNA member – you’re welcome to come to the meeting! Otherwise, submit your thoughts on these sites in the comments below!

For more information, download the attached presentation by Austin Parks and Rec: Rainey-Street-House

Plans Evolve For Rainey Street’s Waller Center

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Here are the latest revisions to the 3 acre Waller Center plan – an ambitious project that stretches along the east bank of Waller Creek, from E Cesar Chavez to Davis Street.

The updated renderings (below) give a more comprehensive vision for the massing of three distinct towers, and how they could be best be oriented.  According to the ABJ‘s interview with development firm, The Sutton Company, their target is to submit plans to the City of Austin for approval by late November

waller_center_austin_Rainey_site_sat

Here’s what we know about the goals of the project:

  • Tower A is a 21 story office building
  • Tower B is a 46 story residential tower
  • Tower C is a 38 story mixed use Tower
  • Target FAR is 10:1
  • 26,000 ft retail (possibly grocery store)

Checkout the images below.

[Read more…] about Plans Evolve For Rainey Street’s Waller Center