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  #41  
Old Posted Nov 7, 2017, 12:50 AM
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Originally Posted by PDG91 View Post
Hey now, putting in a new residential building in place of what used to be some dumpy motel and some other random buildings is progress enough for that area
No. Don't settle for less just because what was there before was crap. It's irrelevant what was there, what matters is what's gonna be there for the next several decades.
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  #42  
Old Posted Nov 7, 2017, 1:20 AM
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No. Don't settle for less just because what was there before was crap. It's irrelevant what was there, what matters is what's gonna be there for the next several decades.
I'd like to think that the heart and soul of the Pearl is hotel Emma, southerleigh, and the nice little courtyard in front of Southerleigh and the new cellars building. You then have all the other little restaurants, bakery, retail, office space, etc. that surrounds the main focal point of the Pearl. My point is this, the new residential building on Newell is off to the side of the Pearl, far far away from where all the attraction and foot traffic is at. No one would bother walking all the way down to Newell to check out a few stores there. That's my reason and thought as to why there's no ground retail being added to this new building.
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  #43  
Old Posted Nov 7, 2017, 1:22 AM
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Originally Posted by PDG91 View Post
I'd like to think that the heart and soul of the Pearl is hotel Emma, southerleigh, and the nice little courtyard in front of Southerleigh and the new cellars building. You then have all the other little restaurants, bakery, retail, office space, etc. that surrounds the main focal point of the Pearl. My point is this, the new residential building on Newell is off to the side of the Pearl, far far away from where all the attraction and foot traffic is at. That's my reason and thought as to why there's no ground retail being added to this new building.
Sounds more like reasons it should have retail.
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  #44  
Old Posted Nov 7, 2017, 1:26 AM
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Originally Posted by Restless 1 View Post
Sounds more like reasons it should have retail.
No, no one wants to go to just one single residential building off to the side for just retail alone when they can just go to the main attraction (which is the Pearl) and shop, eat, relax, etc. People want to be where the action is.
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  #45  
Old Posted Nov 7, 2017, 1:36 AM
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No, no one wants to go to just one single residential building off to the side for just retail alone when they can just go to the main attraction (which is the Pearl) and shop, eat, relax, etc. People want to be where the action is.
The "action" can be anywhere. You said that Newell is "far, far away from where all the attraction and foot traffic is."

The point is, when 226 Newell and the construction across from it is built and filled, there would be plenty of traffic there, IF there were anywhere for them to go.

As it is, they will likely hop in a car, and go somewhere else.
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  #46  
Old Posted Nov 7, 2017, 3:33 PM
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Originally Posted by Restless 1 View Post
The "action" can be anywhere. You said that Newell is "far, far away from where all the attraction and foot traffic is."

The point is, when 226 Newell and the construction across from it is built and filled, there would be plenty of traffic there, IF there were anywhere for them to go.

As it is, they will likely hop in a car, and go somewhere else.
Yeah, it's kind of like... great build a center attraction for people around the city to visit.

But don't forget to include retail amenities for the people that live there and won't actually leave when it's all said and done.
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  #47  
Old Posted Nov 7, 2017, 4:32 PM
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Originally Posted by PDG91 View Post
No, no one wants to go to just one single residential building off to the side for just retail alone when they can just go to the main attraction (which is the Pearl) and shop, eat, relax, etc. People want to be where the action is.
I routinely go to the GS1221 bar which is "one single residential building off to the side just for retail alone", because it's a relaxing neighborhood bar, usually not crowded, and is mostly locals and friends. Anecdotal evidence, but worth stating. Brown Coffee at 1800 Broadway is the same thing--it's in "one residential building off to the side for just retail alone", and it's always busy.

There's a benefit to having more options for retail and the opportunity to bar and restaurant hop--it's why people in Austin are willing to pay for an Uber ride to go Downtown, because if one place isn't a good scene, there are 40 others they can walk to instead. More options are a good thing, because it means people will have that much more to do when they go to the Pearl and it makes it worth their while.

I was very surprised that Silver Ventures did not include ground floor retail at these apartments--the city leaders should really start requiring ground floor retail if they're going to be giving out incentives (I'm just assuming they're going to ask for incentives at this one). Incentives have been wonderful for kickstarting development in the Pearl area, but it's 2017 and we should be asking for more if taxpayers are going to be shouldering the burden for luxury apartments with no benefit to the neighborhood other than bodies driving in and out of it to work. If we truly want a community in this Midtown area, we have to give people places to go and gather outside of the heart of the Pearl.
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  #48  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2018, 5:38 PM
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Taken on 2/7/18. Some progress from the last time I visited the site. They got the land all cleared and smoothed out, I'm assuming they're getting ready to lay out the rebar for the foundation?
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  #49  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2018, 9:34 PM
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Originally Posted by Restless 1 View Post
Sounds more like reasons it should have retail.
As someone who knows next to nothing about construction, I’m wondering—how difficult is it to add in retail spaces to a development like this, after they’ve already done the designs? I mean, if the shell of the building isn’t going to change, it would mostly be an issue of adding in some walls and street facing windows, right?

It’s also not clear to me how it would be any less attractive financially; they’ll still be getting rent, it’ll just be from small business owners instead of residents.

I think it would be a huge missed opportunity if they didn’t have retail on this project. Especially considering that it faces north, in the heat of the summer it’ll be a nice respite to walk into a bar or restaurant or cafe or shop, and not have the sun pounding in through the windows.
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  #50  
Old Posted Feb 10, 2018, 12:44 AM
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As someone who knows next to nothing about construction, I’m wondering—how difficult is it to add in retail spaces to a development like this, after they’ve already done the designs? I mean, if the shell of the building isn’t going to change, it would mostly be an issue of adding in some walls and street facing windows, right?

It’s also not clear to me how it would be any less attractive financially; they’ll still be getting rent, it’ll just be from small business owners instead of residents.

I think it would be a huge missed opportunity if they didn’t have retail on this project. Especially considering that it faces north, in the heat of the summer it’ll be a nice respite to walk into a bar or restaurant or cafe or shop, and not have the sun pounding in through the windows.
It depends on the building, I'd imagine. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the Cevallos Lofts building was originally not mixed use, but a couple of the ground floor units were converted to small retail shops soon after it was built. I might be dismembering that, though.
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  #51  
Old Posted Feb 10, 2018, 2:02 AM
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I also have a hard time believing that people actually want an apartment at street level, with people walking by their bedroom or balcony or whatever. Presumably people want a space that’s above the ground floor, or facing the courtyard etc, not with random strangers literally feet from a window looking into your living space.

Whereas that’s EXACTLY what a retail space would want.

Meh, I just don’t get it.
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  #52  
Old Posted Feb 11, 2018, 12:11 AM
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Originally Posted by Keep-SA-Lame View Post
It depends on the building, I'd imagine. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the Cevallos Lofts building was originally not mixed use, but a couple of the ground floor units were converted to small retail shops soon after it was built. I might be dismembering that, though.
Yeah, you chopped that up quite a bit.
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  #53  
Old Posted Feb 11, 2018, 5:42 PM
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Yeah, you chopped that up quite a bit.
Cevallos definitely had retail on the first floor but it was converted to residential after the small grocery store concept went bust.

As for residential wanting to be on the first floor, I would be open to it, depending on the street its on.... There could be some benefits too, fewer stairs, potentially opening up to a small yard that I could let the dog out to.

We were walking around downtown yesterday and noticed how many vacant buildings there were (sometimes the first floor is occupied but upper floors are vacant) and I was thinking about how they could be turned into residential. I think one of the things we suck in the US with mixed use is not being obnoxious. We live next to a convenience store and people love to have the bass bumping at all hours of the night. People walk around downtown and in walkable areas with bars yelling in the middle of the night. People love riding bikes with extremely loud sound systems through downtown. I won't say that doesn't happen in Europe, but people seem to be a lot more respectful of the fact that other people live next to the bar, restaurant or shop you're leaving at 1 in the morning. I guess part of it is most people in the US grow up in environments where they have there own space, whether that be a large lot in the suburbs or a single occupancy vehicle commuting to work and, as a culture, we aren't very good at sharing space respectfully.
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  #54  
Old Posted Mar 14, 2018, 6:13 PM
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Update on the construction site taken on 3/14/18. A lot has gone on as you can see from the last time I posted a picture on here. The forming of a retaining wall around the perimeter and all these support columns popping up. On the second photo, it looks like they're installing what looks like the base (or mast) of a tower crane?
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  #55  
Old Posted Mar 20, 2018, 6:02 PM
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Went by the site today the tower crane is up & running
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  #56  
Old Posted Mar 20, 2018, 6:59 PM
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Went by the site today the tower crane is up & running
Great update. Nice to see another crane up in the city. Will be nice when the work on Broadway gets up and going.
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  #57  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2018, 1:50 PM
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Got out of a bar in the Pearl rather late last night, walked down to this site and noticed a lot of action. Cement pouring, floodlights on, and I counted a good 20-30 people working on it. And I mean really late, 3:30 or so. Not sure if it’s like that every night, maybe they’ve switched to working overnight now that it’s hot?
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  #58  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2018, 4:53 PM
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It’s very hard to change plans once they start.

The problem usually isn’t space, it’s separating different uses. At GS1221 there is on street parking, plus about 10 garage spaces for retail before you enter the gated part of the garage.

If you look at a project like Quarry Village (lots of retail, with apts on top) there is lots of surface parking for retail, plus some garage spaces that are kind of awkward, before you get into the restricted apartment parking.

At places like 1800 Broadway, they did a little coffee shop and bike shop, but that was likely more about tenant amenity, and less about retail rent. Plus, they set back the building 15-20 feet from Broadway so there would be room for parallel parking on broadway for that retail.

I think the draw for the apartments is that you’re on the river and a block from Pearl.

For some sites, adding even a tiny amount of retail increases complexity by a lot. (Where does commercial trash go? What happens if cafe noise on Sunday morning disturbs tenants? How do we get the vent hood for the bistro on the street level to vent through 4 floors of apartments above?)

And yes, on big concrete pours, when you need to do one big slab before it dries, contractors will often start at 2 in the morning so they can do a 12-15 hour pour before it dries.
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  #59  
Old Posted Dec 28, 2018, 7:10 PM
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There hasn't been an update to this project in a good while so I thought i'd contribute some photos that I took on 12/27/18




This is from the riverwalk level
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  #60  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2019, 8:02 PM
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UPDATE ((if anyone even cares about this project) Taken on 2/28/19)

View of the apartment building from Karnes St at The Pearl





Close up view of the main entrance



View you'd see while walking underneath the IH 35 bridge where all the fishes are hanging at

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