Welp, that about says it all. I just wanna see "2012: Austinites vote for the first phase of urban rail, re-connecting the city" :) :)

Oh, and they left out GRINDHOUSE!

i think it's more interesting to point out that austin has terrence malick, robert rodriguez, and richard linklater as 3 huge directors calling austin their home. and that it also has the coolest theater... alamo drafthouse.

not to mention that i got to see taylor kitsch almost everyday working at jo's and now he's like a huge movie star. it's insane. and i also worked with elise, one of the crazy twinsitters, in that grindhouse movie. basically, you have more chances of hanging out with a movie star in austin than most other major cities. not necessarily cool... but still pretty cool.

Duuude....so true. I remember Elise at Jo's back in 06-07.....Yeah, there was a lot they left out. Perhaps they are trying for a specific audience.

people don't really understand the way austin works. i feel like people just see it on the tv, or hear about it from a friend, or on a magazine... and yeah there are awesome events but, to me, at least, what was the coolest thing about austin was simply the community and the vibe. everybody's a friend of somebody. and if your friends with that guy, you're friends with the other guy who's also friends with that other guy who's also your friend.

i have two friends here in san francisco who lived there and i kid you not... we never met there in austin but we have mutual friends. we're like, "do you know this person?" "yeah i do! crazy!"

austin is probably one of the very very few cities in america that's like that. people just don't understand what is cool about it... and to me, that's what makes it cool right there. and these ads that are promoting austin will never do austin any justice until someone decides to move there for themselves and see what the fuss is about. it's true though... austin isn't for everybody and i can totally respect that. i understand what is so great about san francisco and why one would pick it over austin. the reason is probably more obvious than austin, because austin is one city still kinda "unknown" so to speak and its really hard to describe what's so cool about it.

and yeah elise quit like two or three months after i started working there. she really loved my hair! haha

In the other thread people were talking about the part that says Austin was the "Best little city" and how it is so big now. To me because of like you are saying is why it will always be a "little city" no matter how many millions of people live there. It really is more like a small town than city where everyone some how knows everyone in one way or another. In London I constantly run into people who when they ask where I am from and say 'Austin' they know people who I know in Austin. It doesn't matter where you go. Everywhere people know people you know with ties to Austin. It is kind of creepy. lol.

• Video Link

:previous: so true. It's like 1 degree of separation in Austin...Ads like that are flattering, but they objectify the very essence of what we're all so proud or obsessed with in this city.

The VERY WORST is the F1 Austin promo video. I suggest looking that up for a good laugh.

my friend here in san francisco says that austin has got to be the most nostalgic city ever. for everyone there was a decade better than the other. i hear people say, "you shoulda seen austin in early 2000s" then others the 90s, and some 80s so on and so on. And I thought it was particularly funny that they showed the part of "dazed and confused" how they were complaining how the 70s sucked and the 60s were better. i think linklater nailed it. and its probably gonna be like that for every decade as time goes by.

i also just finished watching this movie and some guy is interviewed there. and he basically tells one of the musicians that for all the decades in austin, musicians have always faced obstacles. and that it's part of the struggle as a musician. and its not something that the city itself is doing to give them a hard time. anyways... its pretty interesting and i thought it was cool looking at austin from a really cool perspective. and i recommend it.
http://youtu.be/kgdXRaxENfU

I get what y'all are saying about people knowing people but I think thats for those of us who are either from Austin or have been here more than 5 years. As the city grows im seeing less of that as tons of people from other areas flock here. What I do see and hear others say is that Austin is a very social city and that in itself creates the vibe that you can go out and meet interesting new people.

Novare FINALLY completes the purchase of the Post Office site. So another 40+ story condo tower is in our future?

http://www.statesman.com/business/po...n-2364037.html

New apartment complex in works in West Campus
By Shonda Novak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Published: 7:58 p.m. Friday, May 18, 2012

Postal Service completes sale of downtown Austin station
By Brian Gaar
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Published: 8:04 p.m. Friday, May 18, 2012

some of these projects seem like eternity for them to take off. novare is one of them.

Can someone refresh my memory? What was planned for that post office location?

http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/5360/image1pck.jpg

Further back than that they wanted to develop two towers across the street from each other. One would be 35 floors and around 450 to 480 feet tall, while the other was planned as 40+ floors and up to 550 feet.

With all of our recent downtown development, I've noticed a trend. This is something that's starting to worry me:

http://www.carfreeinbigd.com/2012/04...all-block.html

If we're talking about creating density, shouldn't that also include density of buildings, as opposed to just density of people?

That isn't planned for the post office site as far as I know...I believe IBC is adjacent to the PO.

$147 million Waller Creek Tunnel Project beneath downtown on time, budget :D
http://www.statesman.com/news/local/...n-2365543.html

^^^ Yes there is a parade of dump trucks hauling away dirt every day at the site. Good to see they're on schedule.

YNN has a story running this weekend with footage from inside the tunnel. It's a surprisingly big tunnel.

I guess there is a first for everything, even Austin. lol. They better not jinx this!

This is a very cool picture from that article.

http://www.statesman.com/multimedia/...__1473491c.jpg

Waller Creek is a pathetic trickle most of the time. That tunnel should definitely handle some flood action.

What's going to make it so nice is that water will be flowing year round. I anticipate that section of the city is going to explode, starting with the new Manchester convention center hotel. Also hear the city is trying to sell the PD HQ so that will open up another stretch to new development.

where did you hear this? would like for this to happen at least some time in the near future.. that pd hq is a huge stinker and it sucks more that its on 7th st right next to i-35. it's just placed in such a terrible location and plus the building is hideous!

APD has had a new HQ on their wishlist for a while. It was even proposed to be put on the bond list this year, but was eventually put on hold for other projects.

Once the tunnel opens those parcels of land taken out of the flood plain will double maybe even triple in value. My guess is the city is waiting for an offer they can't refuse. The PD HQ was not purpose built. It was originally built in the early 80's to be the HQ of a bank but the deal fell through. The city bought it cheap. It's a horrible use of space. There's a huge atrium which is not practical for a PD. Maybe Trump will buy it and knock it down and build a nice scraper....

A better picture of The Whitley building.

http://www.loopnet.com/Attachments/D...97CB5B5E__.jpg

http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/17650...zos-Austin-TX/

Your right, it was a 40st. residential tower that was going to take its place.

Cool, thanks.

Here it is a little bigger.

http://www.loopnet.com/xnet/mainsite...se&ExactDim=-1
http://www.loopnet.com/xnet/mainsite...se&ExactDim=-1

It's not totally terrible after all. My biggest thing is the ground level retail... I am hoping they put something useful in.

Twilight lighting always helps a rendering. It's still the same bland building... just a few lights on it. Just this side of West campus fodder!

too bad this isn't a tunnel for a new subway system...

but still great for the new waller creek vision:cheers:

That's the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw it -- looks pretty feasible to build a tunnel 26ft wide and 70 ft underground in Austin. Waller creek tunnel is about a mile long, so we'd be looking at $140M/mile ballpark. A lot of money but not impossible. Especially if it's underground for only the problem areas on the line, where lanes can't be spared. Or to cross Ladybird lake.

Has anyone seen this?? Better yet, does anyone have a subscription to ABJ, and wouldn't mind sending me the full article?!!?!?

New renderings of Austin's Seaholm project

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/pr...lic-space.html

Lol!

When I saw it I thought, "What the hell.. It is the Tube, but in Austin!"

Looks like they're available here: http://www.seaholm.info/html/renderings.html

I like it! The tower got little snazzier.

Did they tunnel through sand?

I don't think Austin has any sand. East of Austin there is maybe a few feet of soil. That black Houston clay. But central and west Austin is pretty much just solid rock. Limestone.

The ground around here is riduculous. You almost need a jackhammer to dig a fence post hole.

East Austin into eastern Travis County you have the orange colored Sandy loam in some areas the Black clay soil is where the Blackland prarie slices through which is central east Austin from the Northeast part through South Austin in a sliver. We have Blackland prarie clay soil where I live. But go a mile west of here its limestone.

it looks sooooooooo gooooooooooooooooodddddddddd :d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d:d

Looks good, so are they going to be starting next month?

Indeed! I wanna throw a party for it. Have fireworks go off my balcony....that could be dangerous :))

Limestone.

And clay. The clay is almost harder to dig through than the limestone.

Food trucks on future hotel site told to leave
 

Good to see this thing finally moving forward.


Austin Business Journal by Vicky Garza, Staff Writer

Six food trucks parked at Congress Avenue and Second Street in downtown Austin have been told it’s time to unhitch and move out as construction for a JW Marriott hotel is set to begin this summer.

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/bl...site-told.html

Getting rid of that parking lot is going to be huge for downtown. I can't wait for that hotel to be done! Second Street's future is looking bright.

haha... neither one of those place were any good anyways. :D

Why can't people see the bigger picture with these developments? Y'all, I've had a rough past couple of days with total brain dead NIMBYs. Just casually hearing people say "yeah, this is the end of Austin", "Downtown and all those high rises are evil", or "Austin is turning into downtown Seattle; we'll only have homeless downtown in a few years" !! I can't stand ANYMORE OF THIS STUPIDITY!!#$@ First. These poeple don't have any solid information about what they're bitching about. Second. They did not vote, nor do they even know who the current mayor is. Third. THEY JUST MOVED HERE FROM LA, NY, DALLAS, OR CHICAGO!!!!

Austin weighing changed deal to develop downtown water plant site
 

BySarah Coppola
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF


One of the biggest downtown Austin developments ever would take shape on a valuable city-owned block over the next several years under a deal the City Council will consider today.

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/...r-2372704.html