Finally, a tiny bit of movement on the Block 190 tower (Tower #4). The zoning change request status changed to "Scheduled for a hearing". That means a Planning Commission meeting, but no meeting date is listed yet.

https://abc.austintexas.gov/web/perm...rtyrsn=1136308

Is Block 190 the one directly across from the Fairmont?

Yes. It's the parking lot pictured a few posts back with the tree removal.

are the heights from these 4 blds still from the original McCort plan? (or whatever it was called) I'm behind on this one.

I pretty much gave up on this one years ago.

The first three tower proposals are the same ones that were approved when Sutton and later McCourt Global owned the project when it was called Waller Park Place. The We Company got a site plan extension for the first three towers when they bought the project, so no changes to those three towers. No tower was ever planned for the fourth site (Block 190) as far as we know until the We Company bought the site.

The Block 190 zoning change is up for a vote at Tuesday's Planning Commission meeting. There is a 12 page backup file. It doesn't have any height or floor count info. But it contains more zoning info than most people would ever care to read. This is the project summary:

http://www.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=336217

So just for comparison’s sake, 6X is officially 589,112 sq ft (per Lincoln’s website).

So what they’re proposing is a structure with an additional 320k sq ft, if I’m reading that right...?

EDIT: if so, that’s a huge ass building.

I wonder what the footprint of the building will actually be though. If they were to use all of what is being zoned for one building, it would be a very weird stubby and wide building. Hopefully they put two buildings here and leave enough room to extend Rainey through to Caesar Chavez.

I think the 589,000 square foot number for 6 X Guadalupe is only the office space. Overall, the building has a little more than 1.1 million gross square feet. I'm not sure what the breakdown is. Either way, I would still expect the Block 190 Tower to be somewhere around a million+ gross square feet.

The Republic is big also with over 920,000 gross square feet.

The difference between those two and Block 190 is that its lot size will probably end up being about 25,000 square feet smaller for Block 190. That bodes well for height. It would be even taller if they did decide to put Rainey Street through the lot to Cesar Chavez. That would carve out another 12,000 square feet from the lot size.

By the way, this article from October by Jan Buchholz lists the same info that came in the new planning review info, plus, she says there's a residential component. If true, and those residences get stacked in the tower, it would be an 875,000 foot office tower plus however much space they were adding for residential units. It's going to be interesting to see what happens with this one because it could end up being very tall.

https://atxrealestatenews.com/2019/1...trict-project/

This is all going to go up in smoke when WeWork folds. Co-working space is a fad that will end and then, if built, we will be saddled with excess office inventory for years.

Ergo, I actively don’t want any large scale projects associated with them unless the buildings are predominantly alternative uses (including traditional office space).

I don't think it would take much--if anything at all--to convert from "co-working space" to "traditional office space". So unless you think there is a bubble in downtown office space in general (which I don't think there is much evidence for), this caution should not be needed.

Also, this is being developed by Lincoln and Kairoi (6xG) with the We Company being an equity partner. At least that's what I get from the minimal amount of info available about this project.

WeWork was bailed out by SoftBank. I don't exactly know the structure of the company anymore, or how it relates to this project, but SoftBank has more than enough money to back whatever might happen with WeWork.

No surprise, but the Block 190 ZC passed on consent and is headed to City Council.

912,000-sq.-ft. Rainey district project tied to WeWork clears final hurdle before Austin City Council

https://communityimpact.com/austin/c...-city-council/

Is that site really 1.4 acres? That's huge. If so, this building is not going to be as tall as some might think.

The City Council takes this up at the 03/12 meeting. It'll pass, and I suspect we'll see a site plan filing shortly after that.

Item 72.
https://www.austintexas.gov/edims/do....cfm?id=336568

The Block 190 ZC was approved at today's CC meeting. We should see a site plan filed soon - unless that virus/economic meltdown thing gets in the way.

I think it is pretty silly to continue to refer to this proposal as the We Company project. We Company will never have a damn thing to do with anything that gets built on that land. We Company probably won't exist after we dig out from this current economic implosion, and they sure as hell won't have any financial stake in the property or project, if and when anything gets built.

The We Company owns the project. So it will be a We Company project until they sell it.