Of the buildings being taken out by this development, the one furthest west (last occupied by Rebel's) is the only one that looks anything like a brick warehouse of old. The rest of them have been bastardized beyond belief. Maybe there's some old brick underneath those facades? I don't know, but they currently don't very much remind me of warehouses. Even if they previously had historic architectural value, I doubt they do now.

Also, none of the bars in these buildings really stuck around all that long. These spots were revolving doors. I'm fine with these buildings going. They hardly added much to the Warehouse District anyway. (Rebel's seemed popular and may have survived. It's sudden closure makes me think that it was pushed out for the redevelopment.)

Rebel's used to be Rainbow Cattle Co, a gay country music bar. Kinda sad we don't have that anymore, being in the capital of TX. Anyone who's been to the Roundup in Dallas knows how interesting it is - would be great to have something like that here in Austin again

I agree! We need a gay country western bar in Austin! :)

Why not invest and build one?

When you take out the spires on 360 and Fairmont this sucker is gonna be the 4th tallest behind the Independent, Austonian and Frost. Hopefully not for long though....

Forgot Block 71.....5th tallest....

You'd think so with all the buildings going up, but I remember we looked at this a couple of years ago, and the issue is that all of Austin's urban core housing is quite expensive.. so the units are occupied by single professionals, smaller families, DINKs, and some second homes even. Dallas and Houston have lower income sections in their urban core which tend to be much more dense; families living in small apartments, etc.

Now West Campus, that density would probably compare.

Yep... last I saw West Campus is the most dense sq mile in the state. (something like 30K). Downtown has to be between 15 and 20 within it's sq mile.

It sounds like you misunderstood. When I was referring to the core, I was including West Campus in that. Yes, downtown Austin housing is expensive, but I when I said it felt more dense it wasn't just the buildings I was referring to, but the number of people and activity on the street level. Regardless, the numbers don't lie. The makeup of the downtown population doesn't matter. There are in fact around 15k residents in the downtown CBD. That's not a guess on my part. DANA puts those numbers out.

The numbers I've previously seen (I don't have links or anything) for downtown Dallas and Houston were less than that. I want to say each was around 12k, but I could be off a bit. Also, I don't know exactly what areas of Dallas and Houston those stats were including. I assumed that was within their CBDs, but maybe it wasn't. If the stats encompassed more than their CBDs, then they are definitely less dense.

I still stand by the basic point I was making, Austin's combined urban core is probably the densest. If it's not, there probably aren't any other areas in the state that are much more dense than it is.

Sorry if I misunderstood. I did understand Austin's CBD has a higher population, no argument there. I was also referring to urban cores as a whole (not just CBD), and I'm thinking that the very dense low-income sections of Dallas and Houston (which are often forgotten but still in the urban core) probably still bump them up higher than Austin.

But to your point, if you include West Campus in the core then I'd probably change my guess.

I don't know how recent/accurate the data is here, but it is interesting. Dallas including uptown is surprising.

http://zipatlas.com/us/tx/houston/zi...on-density.htm

http://zipatlas.com/us/tx/austin/zip...on-density.htm

http://zipatlas.com/us/tx/dallas/zip...on-density.htm

For Austin, it shows 3,855 people living in the 78701 zip code. That's way off. These numbers are pretty dated it seems. We will probably have to wait for the Census Bureau to do their update in 2020.

Yeah, I noticed other problems with that site after I posted it. The color key varies based on the highest population zipcode in the area. That's why Houston has no visible red; they have a .1 sq mile zipcode listed with a 32K population density so nothing else is close to red.

Anyway, disregard, and I apologize for the off-topic tangent.

Yea... something is up with that data and interface. Downtown Austin will have 20K residents very soon (by 2020ish) when east 6th work is habitated. Factor in over 10K hotel rooms and you have a lot of people on the street every night after work.

What's happening with this tower? Something like 18 straight posts regarding other subjects.

The Roosevelt Room (307 W. 5th) is now planned for Demo. A permit for the "Total demolition of a 6,722 sqft office space (2 stories)" was filed today.

https://abc.austintexas.gov/web/perm...ertyrsn=762987

307 W. 5th:

https://i.imgur.com/1qRytcR.png

Cool. So, this is still inching forward. Eagerly awaiting more info and some renderings of this tower.

delete

I thought roosevelt room wasn't going to be touched by this development?

It's interesting. The original renderings didn't include it as part of the available footprint. It was always separate.

Actually looks like it belongs on The Plaza's 1/4 of the block -- not that that means anything, apart from it triggering my OCD.

It wasn't. The developer may have decided that they wanted to gobble up that last little bit for whatever reason and made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

I hope they are able to find another location downtown. It's a popular place that seemed to have staying power. It's one of my faves.

So f'in SAD......
hate this.