Austin & Austin Metro Projects Compilation

[Dr. B.]

On 2/10/2018 at 6:53 PM, The ATX said:

I suspect Endeavor has something pretty nice planned for the site.  My main fear is that the City is heavily involved in the South Shore build out, and the City Council caves whenever a dozed NIMBYs with no urban planning experience start pissing their pants. 

I wish the NIMBY's had stepped up and did something to prevent or force improvement of the atrocities that are "422 on the Lake" and especially the "water marq".  Way to have your prime development site build out with crap buildings that are lazy designs copied/cookie-cut from everything going up on South Lamar, South Congress, etc etc.  Gross.

[The ATX]

On 2/15/2018 at 10:28 AM, Dr. B. said:

I wish the NIMBY's had stepped up and did something to prevent or force improvement of the atrocities that are "422 on the Lake" and especially the "water marq".  Way to have your prime development site build out with crap buildings that are lazy designs copied/cookie-cut from everything going up on South Lamar, South Congress, etc etc.  Gross.

NIMBYs can be blamed for Water Marq.   Riverside Resources planned two 15-story apartment towers pre-recession, but got beat down by the NIMBY outcry.  Hence we got Water Marq with a "q".

[The ATX]

Here's a great shot by KevinFromTexas at SSP showing the ~18-story plateau developing in West Campus.  The city should revisit the zoning for the area.  Most of the real estate zoned for ~18-story buildings seems to be spoken for.

[The ATX]

These are from an excellent photo thread by KevinFromTexas at SSP.

These are from the Mopac Expressway that parallels I-35 on the West side of downtown. 

 

From left to right:  Third + Shoal (Facebook Tower), Austin Proper Hotel & Residential and the site of the Block 185 tower.  The Google Tower is the blue one behind Austin Proper.  

 

The Independent and 5th & West condo towers:  

[Dr. B.]

On 2/17/2018 at 11:21 PM, The ATX said:

NIMBYs can be blamed for Water Marq.   Riverside Resources planned two 15-story apartment towers pre-recession, but got beat down by the NIMBY outcry.  Hence we got Water Marq with a "q".

ugh

[The ATX]

Here are a couple West Campus project updates:  

11-Story Marriott AC & Autograph Dual Branded Hotel

Photo by Urbannizer

 

18-Story Lofts of Austin

Photo by Urbannizer

[The ATX]

This photo taken from a freeway flyover by KevinFromTexas makes it appear that downtown is developing into two separate clusters of high-rises.

[The ATX]

This is a photo of the downtown farmer's market taken in mid-February.  It must have been a cold morning with so many people wearing jackets.  The U/C towers in the background are the Independent, Third + Shoal (Facebook Tower) and Austin Proper Hotel & Residences.

Link

[The ATX]

The skybridge connecting the Hilton convention center hotel to the convention center is fininished.  Notice the switchbacks.

Photo by corvairkeith

[The ATX]

Here's a photo update from TOWERS of the U/C 17-story Homewood Suites in the Rainey St. Entertainment District.  They are definitely making progress on whatever it is they are doing.

[The ATX]

The crane just left of center is for SXSW's awesome HQ.  In five years this view will be amazing.  And five years ago many of these buildings did not exist.   This is from a CBRE listing for leasing space in the Moody Bank building.

[The ATX]

Here are a couple of new rendering of the dual branded Marriott AC & Autograph:  

White Lodging

[The ATX]

Here's another new West Campus apartment building that maxes out the 17/18- story height allowed by zoning.  This one is called Inspire on 22nd.  We must have close to 10 of these 17/18-story projects U/C or in the planning stages.

The website:  http://liveatinspire.com/

  The rendering   came from their Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/liveatinspire/ 

[The ATX]

A demo permit was filed for the 11-story University Towers buildings.  Space is getting tight in the West Campus area that was zoned for ~18-story apartment towers.  Eleven-story buildings are now being torn down to make way for 17 or 18-story buildings.  The city really needs to up zone that area again.  Here's one side of the doomed building from Streetview:  

 

But it's really three connected buildings and a parking garage across the street.  I suspect that this may be the next Austin implosion:  

 

[The ATX]

The Planning Commission has approved height increases for buildings at the huge Domain and Broadmoor developments in North Austin.  Heights in one tract were approved for 360' and another for 308'.  Depending on uses, we could now be seeing 25-35-story  towers in that area.  Currently there are about a dozen towers in various stages from complete to planned in the 10 to 18-story range.

[The ATX]

Yet another 18-story student apartment building...

This one is being called Twenty Two Zero Four, and a site plan has been filed.

Link

[The ATX]

This 18-story apartment tower is U/C.  It's name has been changed from 2100 Nueces to MUZE.  Here's a new rendering:  

Link

[The ATX]

The Round Rock Kalahari Water Park/Hotel/Convention Center is finally getting underway.  It's been in the works for a couple years and supposedly got underway last summer.  (See two posts up.) That was apparently a false start, and ground breaking is happening in May.    Here's an article:  roundrocktexas.gov.  It has 975 rooms, so it will be the third largest hotel in the metro.  Here are some renderings:  

Link

[The ATX]

Speaking of resorts...

This is actually inside the city of Austin, but it's far enough away from the core to fit in the Suburban thread.  The Omni Resort at Barton Creek is undergoing a large expansion that includes a 10-story hotel addition.  Here are some renderings:  

Big Red Dog Engineering

[The ATX]

Travis County is vacating its offices in the Palm School that dates back to the 1890s.  This site is next door the recently completed Fairmont hotel, and the County wants to develop the site while maintaining and restoring the oldest portions of the Palm School.  An architectural firm hired by the County came back with three options for maximizing development while preserving the historical structure.  Towers has an article about it.  My favorite of course is the one with the tallest new structure which would be a 27-story residential building.  The rendering is from the article:  

 

The school did not get its name from the palm trees that were planted around it.  Palm happened to be the last name of the person it was named after:  Sir Swante Palm 

 

[The ATX]

The University of Texas is finally moving forward with their long stalled plans to close the south end of the stadium.  The stadium currently seats over 100K, and previous expansion plans pushed that to over 120K, most likely for that tired old everything is bigger in Texas mantra.  This latest expansion seems to be focused on luxury boxes rather than just seating capacity.  The plan is to have it ready for the 2021 season.

Link

[The ATX]

Here's the SXSW HQ:  

Photos by Urbannizer

[The ATX]

The crane for the dual branded Marriott AC & Autograph hotel is up.  I don't have a shot of the crane, but here are a couple photos of the pit by Urbannizer:  

[The ATX]

Here's the first rendering of Capella' 23-story residential tower and 12-story office building in North Austin. 

Austin Business Journal

 

Here's the location (marked Capella on the map.)  Notice that the huge Domain development begins at upper left at roughly the same intersection.  The leading (and possibly only) site in contention for the MLS stadium is the 23.6 area directly behind this project and labeled as City of Austin.  The Broadmoor development that was recently zoned for ~30-story towers is just out of view at upper center.  This is 12 miles from downtown, but is has become a booming an more affordable option than downtown.  Several major tech companies have operations both here and downtown - Facebook, Home Away and Indeed are among them.   

[The ATX]

Here are two more potential downtown towers.  Captiol View Corridor determinations were filed for a couple of sites.  These filings are for the purpose of determining the allowable height on a particular site, and are often the first hint of  new towers.  This first permit filing is for 7th St. & Red River St. and is directly across the street from the Block 87 proposal.  It's also an urban campground with a mural of Willie checking things out.   A CVC runs through the site, but a point tower could be built.  Here's the site on Streetview:  

 

Here's the site showing the CVC:  

 

 

The second permit is for a bank building at the intersection of 5th St. & Nueces St.  Here's the location on Streetview.  The best thing so far about this project is that the owner of the site is quoted in documents attached to the permit saying that they want to demo the building and build as high allowed.  This site doesn't have a CVC on it, so this could be a nice tower.