This was in the transcription of the Brandywine investors call for the third quarter. Broadmoor is approved for 5 million square feet and could start construction year-end 2019. It also sounds like they are looking for a partner on this development.

https://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/call-tra...all-transcript

The difference is the old world cities have other mass transit options along with much of their cities built in the same fashion, not just one section. The Domain gets very clogged with traffic and a big part of that reason is how the roadways are built along with limited access points as well as lack of mass transit.

I guess what I should have said was that the buildings should meet the street, and many of those, especially the ones along the curved streets, do not, but they should. I guess that's more of an issue on the type of development than the street grid.

There are quite a few things that the developers should have done which would have made the Domain much more cohesive. Maybe in a few decades, the first phase can be rebuilt to better interact with the newer sections.

I don’t think it’d require even this. In fact, keeping a pedestrian only “street” would be pretty unique in an actually urban setting (which this will be in a few decades) in the United States.

Simply filling in the parking lots between phase 1 and 2 with vertical mixed use would mostly solve the connectivity problem. For example, Westin could build a parking garage podium beneath a residential point tower on its side parking lot and ditch the front parking in favor of a courtyard. The parking lots around Shake Shack could all be 3-5 story residential with a street grid imposed. The parking lots fronting MoPac could be 2 or 3 10-20 story office buildings over parking podiums.

Broadmoor is also being redeveloped on a grid system with uniformly street fronting facades, which also goes a long way toward both of Kevin’s critiques.

My biggest complaint is Top Golf. It is a great asset for the area, sure, but once Broadmoor is redeveloped it will be a huge dark spot of activity surrounded by pedestrian friendly districts. The grid Kevin craves that Brandywine will bring with Broadmoor cannot extend further south at all toward the area hopefully anchored by a soccer stadium.

There was an article Jun 29, 2015 in the Austin Business Journal by Jan Buchholz regarding the land under Top Golf being sold titled “Land under Austin's Top Golf sold; long term, expect it to be replaced by big buildings”. It mentions in the article “indicates the Top Golf lease is for 15-years with three five-year extensions”. Maybe it will be redeveloped one day, but I might be a very old man by then.:)

https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/b...rm-expect.html

My company owns this site and is working diligently to restructure the lease to begin development in the current surface parking lot

Build it tall.

:cheers:

Unfortunately, if I recall the reason phases 1 and 2 were separated by a big parking lot was because of LCRA's transmission lines.
I believe they did look into burying them, but it was prohibitively expensive. At the time.

I'm sure the time will come when that makes sense, but probably not until most of the rest of NBG has been built up.

I recall that being the reason as well. I would imagine, though, it would be cost effective sooner rather than later once (a) Broadmoor is developed and/or (b) if they go taller than 3-5 floors.

I would love to see some of that infill happen as well. It's just awkward as is, but I get it.

I wouldn't hold your breath. High voltage transmission lines are very expensive to put underground - about $1,000 / foot / circuit. There look to be about a dozen circuits crossing there, and it is about 1200 feet from the substation to the poles beside the railroad tracks. That works out to be about $15 million.


The parcel, which includes the Macy's Store is valued by TCAD at around $10 million. The land value of similar sized Domain parcels is only about $8 million.


It also might not be possible to free up that much land even if the circuits go underground. The diameter of cables that go into duct banks are much larger than overhead, and do not bend easily. There would probably still need to be multiple duct banks, and they would need to be in more or less straight lines between the substation and existing poles. The resulting duct bank easements may not be that much smaller then the current overhead easements, if at all.

A developer capable of seeing this through already owns the land, so the cost of buying is immaterial. Furthermore, although higher land costs are associated with denser development that does NOT mean that low land cost areas cannot emerge with denser development. Sure, it’s less likely, but that’s another thing from saying it’s either impossible or even to say that it is unlikely, when there are other factors at play that can lead to dense development.

For instance, the estimated high cost of underground relocation, which after doing some research of my own is likely not accurate (most sources I find quote somewhere just above a million a mile, although one said up to 5 million a mile, & with that info the cost would be a ~2.4 million - although possibly up to ~13 million - to bury the lines), could ALSO lead to dense development because the developer would have to make the project large enough to recoup the cost of relocation. The only consideration at that point is whether or not the market can absorb the number of residential units, hotel units, or the square feet of office or retail space. If the market can, why wouldn’t a developer want to develop?

In these cases, the land is already owned by a developer invested in the area, there’s not any question as to whether the local market can absorb a good number of new 15-20 story buildings. After all, how many projects of similar scale are there in the area? A dozen? What’s three or four more?

As to your second point, even if a developer can’t free up that much space, there’s still plenty of surface parking from which multiple small point towers with parking podiums could rise. The two unobstructed parking lots are actually the much larger ones. One of those parking lots, if I recall correctly, was the site of a hotel high rise proposal from the original Domain plan. Yes, they ditched it then, because they were probably concerned the market couldn’t absorb such a large project to justify the cost. Is that true now? Likely not, which is why we’re already seeing intense development in the area.

It seems you are just angling for an argument. I am not going to engage. If I'm wrong, and these power lines and the Seaholm substation disappear in our lifetimes, I'll gladly buy you a drink and admit I am wrong. But until then, I suggest you consider that I might just know what I am talking about.

You might, but you may also be as wrong as you were about the cost of underground utility relocation. Furthermore, you just implicitly compared these parking lots with Seaholm... the Seaholm substation is an entirely different matter, as that’s the entire substation rather than just a few power lines. The cost would of course be significantly higher in the Seaholm case, leading to a very small likelihood of short or medium term redevelopment.

Site plan posted to AULCC page for multi-family at 8526 Burnet Road. It's replacing what looks like a single family house that was turned into commercial space. It's next to the Waterloo Ice across Burnet from the Gas Pipe and P. Terry's. Anyone know what project this is? Are there renderings? The elevations are on pages 34 and 35.

ftp://ftp.ci.austin.tx.us/ATD_AULCC/...GS_PLAN_01.pdf

Location
https://www.google.com/maps/place/85...!4d-97.7288127

isn't this the gordon automotive development that the neighborhoods (and Pool) fought forever?

The site plan was file for North Burnet Gateway Plaza.

https://abc.austintexas.gov/web/perm...ertyrsn=307370


That should be for the Capella project:

https://i.imgur.com/WWHQlGL.png
https://www.statesman.com/business/2...ed-near-domain