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  #2201  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2009, 12:21 AM
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Originally Posted by tgannaway89 View Post
Yes the apartments will make an impact, but I don't expect them to kick off a Dubai-like building spree. Just here around UTSA another 2,000 apartment bedrooms opened in the past couple months. A lot more are in the planning or construction stages. No, none of these apartments abut the street or utilize a parking garage. Even so it is still more dense that single family subdivisions. Imagine if UTSA, USAA, and Valero would have been built downtown? We'd be decades ahead of where we are now. Our downtown is still attracting mostly tourist related business.
Only lots of $$$$ and all-hope,last-resort style speculation will kick off a spree like Dubai.

And that area (UTSA) is dense-ish. The land-waste/consumption is ridiculous! The zoning out there makes it impossible for the density to ever mean anything except more people and more traffic.

Yes, our downtown is still only attracting tourist related business, but MY all-hope speculation tells me that it won't be that way for long. In an area that compact, dense and walkable, 1000 more units (2000 residents) will make a huge difference. Now if Ed Cross can just make another announcement.
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  #2202  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2009, 2:48 AM
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Originally Posted by tgannaway89 View Post
Yes the apartments will make an impact, but I don't expect them to kick off a Dubai-like building spree. Just here around UTSA another 2,000 apartment bedrooms opened in the past couple months. A lot more are in the planning or construction stages. No, none of these apartments abut the street or utilize a parking garage. Even so it is still more dense that single family subdivisions. Imagine if UTSA, USAA, and Valero would have been built downtown? We'd be decades ahead of where we are now. Our downtown is still attracting mostly tourist related business.
While that area is increasingly growing, those apartments are to shit. They were built so cheaply, I will be surprised if they last in a storm. In my third year of college (2006, class of 2008) I lived at the outpost in the utsa area. So many water problems and issues with the build and walls. Soon after I left (2 weeks later) water was out for two weeks and from what I understand, they still have issues and along side other apartment complexies in that area. See, the problem now is high overturn. Most people do not stay in those places for long because of issues like this. I was there for only three months. High overturn also produces high crime.
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  #2203  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2009, 4:55 AM
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I hope they aren't "historical." That lot is huge!! It has 380 units now, but with that size lot, you could fit close to 2 times that in a Vistana-like structure.
They were built in 1975. Maybe, once demand goes up a little bit, they'll have a 40 year anniversary demo party.
There is a building on the Martin side by the San Pedro Creek that is historic, the site of the San Antonio's first industrial enterprise - The Menger Soap Works, a soap and candle factory. It was built in the mid 1800s, and is now part of the apartment complex. Its kinda nice, actually. There are offices inside.
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  #2204  
Old Posted Sep 7, 2009, 8:36 PM
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I'm not a big fan of the housing on Durango. The former Victoria Courts should have been the home of the new arena. What a great site, with an Arena, Dome, and Convention Center, and lets not forget the tower in the middle of all that. Too Bad.
I would have like to see some mid rise apartments, 10 to 15 stories instead of same typical 3 story apartment buildings that we see anywhere else in this city.
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  #2205  
Old Posted Sep 8, 2009, 9:10 AM
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I'm not a big fan of the housing on Durango. The former Victoria Courts should have been the home of the new arena. What a great site, with an Arena, Dome, and Convention Center, and lets not forget the tower in the middle of all that. Too Bad.
I would have like to see some mid rise apartments, 10 to 15 stories instead of same typical 3 story apartment buildings that we see anywhere else in this city.
Thank you!
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  #2206  
Old Posted Sep 8, 2009, 3:10 PM
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Originally Posted by The Model View Post
I'm not a big fan of the housing on Durango. The former Victoria Courts should have been the home of the new arena. What a great site, with an Arena, Dome, and Convention Center, and lets not forget the tower in the middle of all that. Too Bad.
I would have like to see some mid rise apartments, 10 to 15 stories instead of same typical 3 story apartment buildings that we see anywhere else in this city.
I know what you guys mean, I really do. But SA is not at that point yet. Give it a few years, best case probably 3-5 years (or 100K to 200K more residents,) and a transit system before we see a true shift in demand for housing in the DT area.
I'm not a fan of THE housing on Durango either, but I am a fan of HOUSING in general in the DT area. I would have liked to see some mid rise housing too, but the fact is that a project like Vistana would have cost 3X what this is costing. Doesn't make too much sense when you have a large lot of land to work with, limited budget, and get the same number (actually 2 less) of units. Newer apartments are not hard to come by in this city and for some people, living in Stone Oak is better than DT. People still choose "shiny and new" over "location" in this city. The only "location" we have in this city is probably AH near the Universities area, Quarry, and MedCenter. Even the newer places can't justify building higher than 4 stories in the suburbs, with land availability still high and knowing that newer, shinier apartments popping up all over the place will take their tenants in 2 years.
Maybe once we get a little more density inside of 1604 to the north, which will mean more traffic, and LRT comes online down Fred Rd., we might see some higher density projects start to pop up when "location" starts to beat out the "shiny and new."
Before we can see a higher density project, demand needs to be firmly in place. Developing a rental housing market is a step towards the upward spiral that will emerge from the addtion of new residents to DT. This is the only way we can begin to see a shift towards more local-serving businesses in DT. Once those businesses are there, people will not need arm twisting to convince them to move DT.
And so far in this city, the only thing we have resembling these apartments on Durango is Quarry Village (minus the retail) and some condos on Louis Pasteur in the Medical Center.
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Last edited by miaht82; Sep 15, 2009 at 1:09 PM.
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  #2207  
Old Posted Sep 8, 2009, 6:58 PM
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^^ Agree with miaht...

Another aspect of this is the availability of residential space for folks who aren't in the upper-middle class.

Austin has seen a boom in recent years and is, in some opinions, now hurting a bit for moderately priced units for people to buy or rent. Having a built in residential base like this will only help us when the time comes for high-rise living downtown.

The broader the foundation, the stronger the building. A broad-based housing market downtown will allow us more sustainable growth in the long-term.

(Upwardly mobile folks in Stone Oak graduate from unimpressive SO apartments to Stone Oak McMansions. The hope here being that folks DT will graduate from unimpressive loft-style apartments on Durango to DT condos.)
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  #2208  
Old Posted Sep 9, 2009, 4:29 AM
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Taken by lunaticbrono2 @ Flickr

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  #2209  
Old Posted Sep 9, 2009, 7:03 AM
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Taken by lunaticbrono2 @ Flickr

Whoooo....What a looker. I love that building. One of the best buildings in downtown SA. Havent seen it at night thought
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  #2210  
Old Posted Sep 9, 2009, 11:49 AM
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there IS NOT a better angle. nice find ydoc...
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  #2211  
Old Posted Sep 9, 2009, 1:22 PM
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San Antonio condo market escapes doldrums

from recenter:

Quote:
The first floor of the Alteza condominium project — located atop the Grand Hyatt hotel — will open in four weeks. Nineteen of the overall 147 planned units will be complete. Units range in price from $298,000 to $3.3 million.

All ten floors are expected to be finished by next spring, according to Scott Nisson, sales director. To date, 31 condos in the first five floors are under contract. Activity has steadily increased since June 1, Nisson said.

Nisson believes what remains of the recession won’t affect luxury condo buyers as much as the general population. The clientele for the product either have existing funds or are easily able to secure financing.

The Broadway is slated to open in the spring and finish ahead of schedule in early summer. The Broadway units start at $495,000 and go up to $3.8 million. Nearly one-third of the 92 units at The Broadway are under contract, including three of the four penthouses.

When Vidorra, a 146-condominium complex just east of I-37 downtown, opened in March, the economy was deep in recession. Despite the economic conditions, Vidorra's developer has closed on the sale of nearly 50 units in the last five months, and reports almost $25 million in sales so far.

Prices for units at the Vidorra range from $200,000 to $1 million.
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  #2212  
Old Posted Sep 9, 2009, 1:48 PM
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from recenter:
The Alteza looked to have a bunch going on as the windows which previously sat blank were full of palettes of construction materials...

Good to know that DT will have a few new residents as soon as 4 weeks out and a couple hundred more by this time next summer - just from the finish out of that one project.
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  #2213  
Old Posted Sep 9, 2009, 8:02 PM
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The Alteza looked to have a bunch going on as the windows which previously sat blank were full of palettes of construction materials...

Good to know that DT will have a few new residents as soon as 4 weeks out and a couple hundred more by this time next summer - just from the finish out of that one project.
Is it normal for something like this to take this long? I thought that was finished spring of 2008. Did they not have a deadline last year for the spring of that year?
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  #2214  
Old Posted Sep 9, 2009, 8:17 PM
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Is it normal for something like this to take this long?
No. They had MANY troubles even before the completion of the building.

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I thought that was finished spring of 2008. Did they not have a deadline last year for the spring of that year?
The building was finished spring of 2008, and even then only partially finished in time for the Final Four. Problems paying subcontractors and other legal issues, which I don't know the specifics of, held up the finish-out of the condos.

All bad things aside, its good to see that completion is near. Anything to get more bodies living downtown.
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  #2215  
Old Posted Sep 9, 2009, 11:28 PM
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So Vidorra still has a ways to go before we can start discussing the possibility of the second tower going up.
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  #2216  
Old Posted Sep 10, 2009, 12:31 AM
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So Vidorra still has a ways to go before we can start discussing the possibility of the second tower going up.
I was told that 70 units in Phase 1 have been sold to date. Almost 50%.
The magic number, I believe is 117 (80%,) so there is a ways to go.
Wasn't that hard to get them to tell me. I just told them that I was interested in the largest unit and possibly the penthouse of the 2nd tower.
Now they could have just told me that, but even if the number is more like 40%(60) right now, then they still have another 60 to go.
I think, and I'm pretty optimistic, that the earliest time for an announcement or groundbreaking would be late 2010, early 2011; 3 to 5 units a month. I hope I'm wrong and that it is earlier.
Alot can happen in 1-2 years.
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  #2217  
Old Posted Sep 10, 2009, 4:36 PM
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I think, and I'm pretty optimistic, that the earliest time for an announcement or groundbreaking would be late 2010, early 2011; 3 to 5 units a month. I hope I'm wrong and that it is earlier.
Alot can happen in 1-2 years.
Yeah, I would say you're pretty optimistic. It seems to me that San Antonio's building cycles for high rise type buildings happen about every 10 to 12 years.

This latest one has been around for a while and has added a lot to the downtown area. A lot of midrises went up with more to follow with the government funded buildings. I would say it will be at least 5 to 7 years before another tall rises.

The one factor that could change that is what happens with Ft. Sam. How much of an impact will it have on the surrounding areas? I think this is something that can finally positively effect the area between IH 35 and Houston street. But that to will be several years away.

Vidorra does have ready to go residences and they could eventually fill up. I'm not surprised that they are stuck on 50% in this economy, but the interest there has been luke warm at best. I can't see another tower rising at that site unless the property values climb significantly. They're more likely to fill the area with townehomes and call it a day..
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  #2218  
Old Posted Sep 10, 2009, 4:39 PM
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I have talked to the sales office at the Vidorra, and they told me that the second tower doesn't have to look like the first one. It can even be taller.
They said the second tower is not in a historical district or something.
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  #2219  
Old Posted Sep 10, 2009, 4:55 PM
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I have talked to the sales office at the Vidorra, and they told me that the second tower doesn't have to look like the first one. It can even be taller.
They said the second tower is not in a historical district or something.
Well, lets all hope for something with the style of the new courtyard and 30 or so stories
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  #2220  
Old Posted Sep 10, 2009, 6:17 PM
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I think they would get a bigger response if they build taller
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