FWIW, the Extended Stay directly south of this parking lot is also for sale. This whole area adjacent to the Statesman lot will be interesting to watch. The Zax/Aussie's lot was recently purchased, the empty Threadgills, and now One Texas Center and Extended Stay all with development on the horizon...

Those in-town Extended Stay hotels have a very short shelf life. This one actually has a fairly respectable clientele.

How would one know that? :)

A friend of mine who lives just up the hill in a condo on S. Lamar puts his parents up at that hotel when they come to town for long visits. They are upper middle class folks from OKC and are usually happy enough with the accommodations and report no concerns about the clientele. So there! I would never use such a respectable joint for any of my illicit liaisons, assuming I still had illicit liaisons at my advanced age.

Can confirm from my own illicit liaisons there that the Extended Stay there is one of the nicer ones I've seen.

This is on the PC agenda for next week's 05/26 meeting. But it appears to be another request to delay that didn't make it on the 05/12 PC meeting agenda.

Movement on the Statesman site
 

It appears the Statesman is gonna vacate: under an article posted on line

Statesman signs lease, will relocate to Southeast Austin site next year

https://www.statesman.com/business/2...site-next-year


"...the Austin American-Statesman has signed a lease for more than 34,000 square feet of space at MetCenter, a corporate business park that the newspaper will move into next year in Southeast Austin...The newspaper’s current 19-acre site at 305 S. Congress Ave., on the south shore of Lady Bird Lake, is slated for redevelopment into a mixed-use project with high-rise towers filled with office, residential, hotel, retail and restaurant space."

This was referenced in the article
https://www.statesman.com/news/20190...-mixed-reviews

Well at least they can take the light rail to their old stomping grounds.

Yikes, what a stuffy industrial setting for our local newspaper. They should have moved to Highland. But I guess they needed something cheaper.

What's the status of this development to replace the Austin-American Statesman building?

Global pandemic + ensuing recession causing a stagnation in downtown office demand while lots of new unleased office space comes online?

This will be part of the next economic wave in 2-6 years depending on your outlook. I mean, at this point expect everything that isn't off the ground or about to get off the ground as stalled and be pleasantly surprised when something isn't.

I heard today from someone working at the Statesman that the old Statesman site will get torn down next year with a mix use development being built on it.

^ Wow. Hope to learn more.

Excellent rumormongering! +1!

sorry I will push for more information on the buildings.

This project is on the Planning Commission agenda tomorrow night. Staff is asking for at least the third indefinite postponement in a row. The last two were 05/20 and 12/19.

Since it has been a while...

At last word this is the project that the Planning Commission is being asked to rezone the Statesman site for. It's Endeavor with SOM as the architect.

https://i.imgur.com/HBILF2C.png

Is this just procedural because no one is prepared to vote? or is this a statement of some sort?

The PC is business and doesn't play games like the HLC. The delays have all been related to traffic analysis. With the economy slowing down, I'm not surprised that Endeavor isn't trying to move forward faster. Endeavor is probably in favor of the slow down until they know what is feasible in the current economy.

Too bad, that would be a fabulous location for a landmark opera house.

Our landmark opera house got screwed over when SOMs plan for the Long Center was poopooed.

we could always repurpose one of the 30 baseball fields along LBL from Austin Hight to Longhorn Dam.

yeah, 30 baseball fields. You would think we pumped out MLB players like we were the Dominican Republic with that many fields. Too bad they are sparsely used and will NEVER be consolidated or repurposed.

Yep, checked it myself. Thirty waterfront baseball fields from Mopac to Pleasant Valley.

There's a fantastic set of underutilized fields that are not really open to the general public over in Butler Shores.

someone should really look into putting a stadium there

:worship::worship::worship::worship::worship::worship:

:haha:

What was SOM's plan for the Long Center?

Looks like TXDOT's new HQ is moving along. This will consolidate offices along Riverside (a huge chunk of the Southshore District) and at the NE intersection of 35th and MoPac. The article below says that 2/3 leases along Riverside are up in 2022. Looks like the new campus is supposed to be done in Q1 2022.
https://www.kvue.com/article/money/e...e-067acab4b45e


On a non-Southshore note, i looked at Google Maps, and TXDOT has a pretty good amount of land along MoPac north of 35th. That would make for some good in-fill and compliment the Grove nicely.

Oakmont Heights and Camp Hubbard
 

Just a little history on this area (for anyone interested). The general area is known as OAKMONT HEIGHTS and the TXDot facility is known as Camp Hubbard.
In 1935, the Legislature transferred the portion of Camp Mabry east of the railroad track to the Highway Department, which had begun using part of the area for equipment maintenance as early the mid-1920s. Known as Camp Hubbard, named for former highway commissioner R.M. Hubbard, this area now is used by TxDOT for various purposes, most notably as the headquarters of the Vehicle Titles Division in the five-story Building # 1, built in 1955.

...taken from
https://sites.google.com/site/oakmon...s/home/history

I stopped paying attention to this project early last year. But I checked the PUD filing, and this thing has been moving right along during the Pandemic despite continuously being postponed at PC meetings. Some 30 file attachments were added since I last checked. But there is very little info about what is going to be built. The 525' height and 1,378 residential units are still referenced though.

https://abc.austintexas.gov/web/perm...opertyrsn=6593

Really glad you dug in to that. Since they called me back to work finally, I've been driving around a lot DT and more and more the SC waterfront seems to be an urgent question for the future. I feel like we're starting to see the limitations on DT development (running out of open lots, CVC corridors, etc). Those limitations are pushing pretty hard on what's being proposed . . .and we're getting these nutso huge towers out of the deal. And I'm not complaining! I love nutso huge towers! But the ramp up in size seems indicative not only of pure demand but also of constraints on supply. We need more land to open up to build on, and pretty darn quick.

(Part of me is secretly wishing we had a valve we could open that would release some of the demand pressure that's building up. It's getting us some amazing projects, but it also feels unnatural and kind of like we're hurtling out of control. YMMV of course, but to me the amount of attention we're getting from the wide world is starting to feel kinda scary.)

Austin Environmental Commission OKs updated version of development plan near Lady Bird Lake

https://communityimpact.com/austin/c...ady-bird-lake/

Fantastic. It'll be so amazing to have highrises on both banks of the river.

I really like the vision. I think it will be cool to see some more height down there - any idea on height restrictions? I didn't see any mention in the article, but it would be cool to see an increase in height for that area to take full advantage.

I also like seeing the rail bridge there - and I look forward to seeing the designs from the forthcoming competition.

I totally agree.

Regarding the Netflix rumor in other threads, this is where I'd be looking to build an HQ. Blank slate to build a Netflixland.

Included in one of the supporting documents in one of the staff reports (sounds like proposed max-heights have remained the same):

There is hypothetical massing and heights on the 21st page in this document for anyone interested:

http://www.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=368490

They include surrounding areas as well in the SCWP, but this doesn't appear to include the higher entitlements they are requesting (400' max). Whatever we end up with could be far taller and denser.

I'm hoping they go tall and allow a good amount of open public land near the river. I absolutely love those public spaces with green lawns and trails along the river. The pedestrian/rail bridge is amazing, and I'm freaking ecstatic at the idea of expanding the boardwalk near the bat viewing area. I think the nimbies will whine without ever realizing what we're gaining by nixing those awful parking lots and putting up high rises where they are while razing the American Statesman complex and opening up that land for public park space fronting the river. They'll just see the towers and shake their heads not realizing what they're missing. The river is such a gem and I'm fully supportive of building along it, while also setting back in places to allow a public park space. I think this development will actually be more transformative and important to this part of Austin than even the Green Water redevelopment was. I mean, this will include a new rail bridge and new public park space which will benefit the whole of Central Austin.

Thanks for the info JollyvilleJ-Rad!

And yes, Kevin, I agree. We do well to consider the gain over the loss...and in this particular case, it's not that difficult.

I share in the excitement as well - this could be a world-class game changer for the urban fabric of Austin that sets a precedent for the rest of the core and lakefront.

A little movement. A ZC request was filed today to remove a restrictive covenant on the site.

https://abc.austintexas.gov/public-s...opertyrsn=6593

Wow, check out Rainey St on page 21. Can't believe how much its changed. It happened so fast.

Planning for 19-acre lakeshore development in downtown Austin moves on into 2022
https://communityimpact.com/austin/c...-on-into-2022/

https://communityimpact.com/uploads/.../15/172343.jpg
https://communityimpact.com/uploads/...15/172341.jpeg
https://communityimpact.com/uploads/...15/172340.jpeg

I was wishing for a Major League Baseball park in this location. Build it and they will come I guess..

It would have been THE perfect spot for it!

Austin Athletics would be nice... :shrug:

I lived at the apartment complext next to here for 2 years. I usually don't like making roads bigger but Riverside is one that might need it if this area develops. Having the blue line and the new pedestrian bridge will help a ton though.

As cool as an MLB stadium would be, it seems like--and I do think this has a good chance of happening in the next decade--that will be built up in the Domain area near Q2. I love this existing development plan as long as they keep the proposed park elements. That space is a fantastic piece of the lakefront and needs to be a mini-Auditorium Shores.