By the way, I should mention that this courthouse is going to be a civil courthouse, not a criminal one. It'll only be dealing with personal lawsuits and things like divorces. Our criminal justice center is 10 blocks away next to the current (old) courthouse.
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Originally Posted by Expat
Is this new building better than what is there now?
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Currently the entire block is used for a parking lot. So yes, anything would be better than that, but we're just hoping to get more out of it. The neat thing about this plan is that Austin's old downtown plan that was designed in the early 1800s by Edwin Waller (who was Austin's first mayor) planned to have certain blocks be used for parks and others for civil uses such as a courthouse. And of course the other blocks were for commercial use. This block in question was originally planned to be Austin's county courthouse block, and there did use to be one on that block before the current county courthouse was built in 1930. That's the other issue, our current courthouse is 80 years old and very cramped for space.
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Originally Posted by Expat
Also, 17 stories is a substantial building. I don't understand the concern for not having a taller building.
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17 floors for a courthouse could potentially mean a building up to 300 feet since courthouses tend to have really high ceilings. So that's not so bad, but why we're wishing for something taller is that block has no height restriction and is the last one with that distinction. Any other block in downtown is either wholly restricted to height because of the capitol view corridors or is partially. It could mean that a building would need to be angular to miss the corridor or have a large setback, or just be short enough to be under it. The blocks that are nearest to the Capitol have the toughest height restrictions. So we have our last block now that could host a really large tall building. We're just wanting to get the most out of this block height-wise, but also make sure it contributes to the street level activity since it's in a very important place, one that is turning into a lively neighborhood now.
Also it kind of sucks because just 2 years ago this block was planned to have a mixed use museum tower that would have been designed by Cesar Pelli. The tower would have been 450 feet tall with 30 floors. It would have had office space above the museum and be wrapped with retail.
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Originally Posted by mhays
Federal ones take this farther than county ones generally, but the principles are similar.
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Yes, the federal courthouse we're getting near the courthouse block is taking top security measures. They'll actually be closing the street that faces the park.
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Originally Posted by Expat
On the top of my head, I cannot think of any mixed use city halls.
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Austin City Hall has retail in it. There's a locally owned coffee house and some other retail that faces the street. It was meant to jump start the retail and residential boom in downtown, and is only 2 blocks from the courthouse block I'm talking about. It's pretty much ground zero for it all, and was one of the first new buildings in that area.
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Originally Posted by Expat
]I would be very interested in hearing about mixed use city halls if they exist.
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You can find some pictures I took of Austin City Hall at the link below. It was designed by Antoine Predock. Some people love it and some hate it. All of the retail in the building faces 2nd Street. The south side (plaza) is for civic uses. The rest of the building contains the council chamber and their offices. You can use the Google Map at that link to see all the new buildings in that area. Most are residential and all of them have retail facing the street. Austin's tallest building is just 2 blocks from city hall.
http://www.emporis.com/application/?...-austin-tx-usa