Austin | 305 S. Congress | 6 Towers - 215'/295'/365'/375'/445'/525' | Proposed
 

It looks like there's some momentum to have the American-Statesman move from its South Congress digs. Apparently they're accepting offers for their property. This would open up 19 acres for redevelopment.

PDF plan
http://www.aia.org/aiaucmp/groups/ai...aiab095036.pdf

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/pr...available.html

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/ne...long-lady.html

http://www.thesquarefoot.com/austin/...ront-location/

And now the American-Statesman's take on it. They even included a map of the area including their own property.

http://www.statesman.com/business/ci...h-2391224.html

The type of development I would expect there would be something that would benefit the whole community, maybe an aquarium as the article suggests. That would be an interesting and compatible use for the site, and it should interact with the bat viewing area near the bridge and have some connection to the hike & bike trail. They're even saying it'll connect some how to the future nearby urban rail stop at Riverside. Remember there's a plan to build a rail bridge across the river from either Brazos or San Jacinto Street to near the American-Statesman property. There could be the possibility of having a pedestrian walkway included with that bridge.

I would tend to be against much vertical development there. The property feels like something that should be used as a community type project. I do remember 427MM from the forum telling me once that the American-Statesman had air rights to build to 110 feet on their property.

Whatever happens, this is the east side of downtown's chance to get a shot in the arm for growth that most of the west side has already seen. It could also help to redevelop the rest of the empty lots south of the river. I remember someone posted recently that there's a planned 353,000 square foot project of some sort planned for the Runtex site at Riverside & South First.

It is amazing to think that about ten years ago the Stateman was just finishing up a major expansion of their facilty at Congress and Riverside. The newspaper business has changed so much since that time. Printing and distributing a major daily in Austin is no longer very profitable. They really are not going to need that operation in a few more years since whatever is left of the Statesman will mostly be an online presence.

^Yes, that's why it's important to only post excerpts of their articles here. Besides the legal issues, I'm not aware of any other local publication that focuses so heavily on urban developments.

Didn't they just finish another expansion too??

The Austin Business Journal does but its of course part of a larger national conglomerate but then again so is AAS being owned by Cox.


Would love to see an Aquarium there, that would help tie in a north/south line of visitor destinations from SoCo to the University area. I really wanted to attend the community imput session today but there is one more chance tomarrow.

An Aquarium is a WONDERFUL idea. OMG. There are no major aquariums in the United States focused specifically on Cichlids. These are a very large group of extremely colorful and interactive freshwater fish located generally in the African Rift Lakes, large African Rivers, the Amazon, and central America.

Ofcourse any aquarium is going to have to include a saltwater section, but having a freshwater aquarium devoted to Cichlidine biotopes would be an AMAZING tourist opportunity in this county. It would also draw multiple national conventions that are related to the Cichlid trade as well as wealthy investors from China, Japan, and southeast Asia. This is the PERFECT site for such a project.

I've left a more detailed comment here:

https://austintexas.granicusideas.co...8e59000100007b

You all should go add your own opinions.

We had a 55 gallon aquarium when I was a kid, and we had Cichlids in it. My parents had even bought some crawdads at the grocery store to eat, and we put a few in the tank. My parents actually caught and raised fish and sold them 30+ years ago.

I would love an aquarium there. I was at Cabellas a few weeks ago and was just totally entranced by their aquarium.

And I took up playing that Fishville game that Facebook has. It's the only game I play. I'm just a nerd for fish and biology. The fish in the game area real species. It's neat to look up the fish online and read about them in the wild.

Love Cichlids too and don't forget We have native Cichlid species here in our rivers as well, I caught a couple a few years ago in Barton Springs and had them in my pond. They grew fairly big and had that classic Cichlid shape. Also grew up with fish tanks and over the years have had everything from African Cichlids to Tropical to Salt Water fish. Dont have the time these days for a tank but I miss it.

You probably had sunfish. They're very similar to Cichlids in appearance, but aren't the same group.

As for the northernmost species, that would be Herichthys cyanoguttatus. It's range extends from central Mexico until the Rio Grande watershed. They can rarely, and I mean very rarely, be found north of that. These findings, however, are due to human (oftentimes pet) release. The conditions are actually not correct in these areas for reproduction or long-term survival, so they quickly die off.

http://www.myfoxaustin.com/story/187...ntral-district

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/...e-2395272.html

At first thats what we thought that they were Sunfish but my aunt who has a degree in Zoology at UT took a look at them and said they were a type of Cichlid. They didnt have the spot on the sides like Sunfish do either but did have a greyish striped body. Ive heard of Texas Cichlids and there was an aquarium not far from here that sold them though I never did buy any. Either they just have been named that and are not true Cichlids or they are a branch of that family. Its quite possible what I cought was a release of someones pet fish who knows, they were cute and survived the winter in my pond.

They said at the presentation that up to 6 million square feet of space could be built.

http://austin.ynn.com/content/top_st...-shore-central

Herichthys cyanoguttatus are Texas Cichlids. It was most likely a release if it was truly a Texas Cichlid.

Ok, big thanks to Jdawgboy and nixcity for the invite. The three of us met up and went to the public presentation. I planned to take photos, and they turned out mostly ok, but then I saw their PDF file of the same images, so I just did screen caps of them to post.

By the way, Chris Riley was there with his bicycle water bottle in hand of course. We didn't meet him, but he was about 8 feet away from us.


What they're planning is to completely redo the street grid south of the river around Barton Springs and Riverside. They'll even add new streets. This will break up the blocks to make them smaller. It'll allow them to widen the sidewalks and have more street facing retail.

They also said the area could support up to 6 million square feet of new space with building heights up to 16 floors. I wouldn't think any of them would be over 200 feet tall. And in their conceptual images, none looked to be taller than the Hyatt, which is the tallest building in South Austin at 185 feet.

There are three different plans that might end up having different street grids.

PDF Plan - The images came from this link.
http://www.aia.org/aiaucmp/groups/ai...aiab095036.pdf

This is what the grid looks like today. Large blocks that limit access to the waterfront bordered by fast moving traffic and narrow sidewalks with vacant gravel parking lots.
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...s/Image1-2.jpg

This is what the street grid could look like. Smaller blocks that are tree lined with stores facing the street with other uses above.
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...s/Image5-2.jpg

This shows what the impact would be to the area with respect to the number of jobs that would be created. These numbers do not include construction jobs. It also shows how much property tax money would be generated for the city.
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...gs/Image16.jpg

This shows what kind of building heights to expect.
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2.../Image10-1.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...gs/Image11.jpg

Comparing the heights of the new buildings south of the river to those in downtown.
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...s/Image8-2.jpg

Streetscape along Congress.
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...gs/Image12.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...gs/Image13.jpg

They also said that there would be plans to redo South First and South Congress. They would be tree lined with wider sidewalks. The streets would turn into Austin's grand central avenues, similar to Michigan Avenue in Chicago with them being more pedestrian friendly and safe.

I do wonder though, with them planning to have a median down both streets that if they do that for Congress how it might interfere with the Capitol view corridor straight down Congress.

More renderings and details

South First Street and Congress Avenue layout


Highrise Apartment


Hotel


Shared Parking Structure


Affordable Housing


Parking Recommendations


South Shore Central Good Planning Practices


Walkability and Austin (compared to other cities).


Austin Trends

:haha: OMG, that's so good. This could be one of the best things to ever happen to Austin. Making South Congress beautiful, walkable, and safe may be the most exciting part; other than the idea of creating smaller blocks and whole new streets, of course. Shit like this just gives me chills. There's so much potential. So many cool new hangouts to create. This would be the biggest and most potent extension of urbanism beyond the bounds of traditional downtown. And that's got to be our goal; the urbanization of Austin.

Although, this image doesn't show what kind of streetscape or redevelopment might take place in the current Statesman lot.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...s/Image5-2.jpg

After demolition of the building, hopefully they would apply a street grid to the lot and build a bridge crossing Lady Bird Lake to Brazos. They can't connect it to San Jacinto because the Four Seasons Hotel is blocking it.

Yeah, they'd have to either build the bridge at Brazos or Trinity. I don't know why I said San Jacinto. Brazos would be the more convenient route for pedestrians who otherwise would have walked across the Congress bridge. But having it at Trinity might be less unslightly since it would be farther from the Congress bridge. A pedestrian bridge near there could also have the use of allowing hotel guests from the Marriott and Fairmont hotels, and other convention center guests, venture across the river to explore a little.

If you look at the PDF link, it shows what they might do at the Statesman site. One idea they had was to have a sort of terraced hill for outdoor events where people could sit maybe for festivals/music. That would be nearest to the water. Closer to the street there would likely be retail with other uses above. I have to wonder, though, would live music at that location disturb the bats? We really should consider preserving their roost. They do bring about a million visitors a year to Austin, and that's good for the economy. With that many people there already, the City should take advantage of that and do something there that brings those tourists to whatever development happens here and let them spend money. Besides, having another outdoor seating festival type area seems redundant since we already have Auditorium Shores.

How about a bridge into Bierce St to connect soco and Rainey? That would seem to be a perfect match.

that is an awesome, awesome idea! hope it comes to fruition!

Since the bridge would carry buses and lightrail it would need a fairly wide street. The streets in that area around Rainey Street are way too narrow for that. Rainey Street doesn't even have sidewalks, and there's only parallel street parking. Adding buses and lightrail to the mix would only make it worse.

And check it out, my 30,000th post!

I like the concept (besides rigid height maximums) as well as the focus on walk scores. However, I question the need to put a median into the roads. Wider roads always hinder walkability; Michigan Ave is somewhat of a red herring and IMO it's width actually reduces walkability.

At least the parking minimums seem sane though I still wish they were lower...(this, more than anything, would drive walkability by driving actual walkers who would then create demand for sidewalk retail and food).

^agreed, now tie it in to the east riversdie via things such as rail and make sure it has great connectivity to the river (which this original conceptual plan has) and we are talking about a huge bump to our central core.

If there's going to be another bridge it's likely going to be on Trinity Street, and most likely as part of urban rail. This would make the most sense in terms of coordinating South Shore development and mobility.

http://downtownaustinblog.org/wordpr...ity-street.jpg

Wish we'd land a MLB team and raze the Statesman or Hyatt sites for a purty little stadium.

Wouldn't fit there. There are also much better spots for a major league stadium. Out on 7th near 183 where we can raze a bunch of that industrial land is a good place.

Half the stadiums in MLB are built on a handful of downtown blocks. The Statesmen site would be excessive if anything.

I always thought the South Shore would be a great place for a baseball stadium. Auditorium Shores used to have a baseball stadium actually.

Another good spot would be to piece together a few blocks around 9th and Trinity. You would have good proximity to the 6th Street/Entertainment District and the all the parking around the Capitol.

Admittedly, I was thinking more football stadium than baseball.

Yeah, that's a decent spot. You could have good flow from 183 and even 130. I wouldn't want to imagine what the traffic would be like if there was a sports stadium at the Statesman site.

Yeah, the Austin Senators I believe. It wasn't exactly at Auditorium Shores. It occupied the land where Butler Park is now, formerly where the City Coliseum was.

Wonder what Jeff Jack would have to say about a MLB stadium in 78704. Personally I am happy not having any pro-sports in Austin, but just to see him flip out would be worth it.

really.... really.... staduim chatter again?
No thank you. or rather.... Oh Hell no!
Just what we need is a big lump in the middle of downtown. That shit is built to save empty downtowns.
THe last time this came up the best suggestion was to build all that crap in San Marcos and draw from two metro areas....

UT is enough really.
Please go to more UT games.

If there was a stadium for a professional sports team in Austin, I'd say build it by the race track. It's a moot topic anyways. There won't be a pro sports team in Austin for a very long time. All major sports leagues in the US (except soccer) need some contraction. Especially baseball and hockey.

Funny you should mention that because there are rumors floating around about what might be built in the future by the track and a soccer stadium is one.

http://www.statesman.com/news/busine...ject-at/nSg9j/

Do y'all think the city purchasing the Joe's Crab Shack site could have anything to do with this? That area isn't included in the drawing of the proposed redesigned streets, but it's only a block or so east of there.

The city ended up not purchasing the site.

City of Austin deal to buy Joe's Crab Shack site is dead
By Shonda Novak
Austin - American Statesman
August 24, 2012

Joe's Crab Shack site back on market
By Shonda Novak
Austin American-Statesman
September 14, 2012

Re: Broadstone on the Lake (The apartment complex on the old RunTex site)

I inadvertently posted about this on the Austin update thread, but probably better to post in this one.

I found the site plans on the city's website here

Thanks. I missed that.

Could the Statesman site be targeted for an outdoor market and permanent food trailer area?

I didn't think of this site south of the river when I first heard about the potential market. I can't read the whole article, so it's possibly they narrow the targets down and I don't realize it.

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/pr...-a-market.html

These are some of the renderings on display last night at the South Shore Vision presentation held at the Hyatt Regency.

It's important to note that none of these things are set in stone. They're just possible concepts - what they referred to at last night's presentation as "scenario planning." The purpose of last night's presentation was mainly to talk about the new analytical tool the city has to figure out what to do with each parcel. (It was developed by one of the speakers at last night's presentation - John Fregenese - and has been "fine-tuned" so to speak - to fit Austin's needs.) It sounded like a cool program. It's sort of like Sim City, but you can set certain parameters - like required number of parking spaces, amount of impervious cover allowed, FAR's, setbacks, etc, and the program will "build" the building to show you what you could put there. It would also estimate how much it would cost a developer to build, how much tax revenue the project would bring the city and how much it would cost the city to provide services for.

The program is supposed to be online in a couple of months and it will also be available for the public to use. (I'm sure some of you will have lots of fun playing around with it.) It's really very fast. They were talking about being able to have public meetings, and if someone in the audience had an idea, they would be able to plug those parameters in and the computer would show you what the project or idea would look like in a matter of minutes.

Last night's presentation (and the slide show with a lot more renderings) will eventually be online (and/or on Channel 6) as well, and it's really worth watching.

My photos didn't come out very well because of the lighting, but thought I'd share them anyway.

A wide view from the north shore of Lady Bird Lake:

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...s/DSC_0014.jpg

Left half of the above rendering. Note the possible urban rail/pedestrian bridge connecting Trinity Street to the South Shore.

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...s/DSC_0015.jpg


Right half of the first rendering - showing the Congress Ave. Bridge and Hyatt.

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...s/DSC_0016.jpg


This concept is called a Green Finger. It would be different from a major artery. Although it would allow for limited traffic, it's mainly designed for pedestrians to have a pleasant walk to and from the lake and would include housing and retail.

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...s/DSC_0017.jpg


Green Finger Rendering

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...s/DSC_0018.jpg


Street design with urban rail

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...s/DSC_0020.jpg


Rendering of Barton Springs Rd (East) with rail

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...s/DSC_0021.jpg


Map of the general area - bounded by South First on the west, Lady Bird Lake on the North and east, and Bouldin Creek on the south.

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...s/DSC_0022.jpg

Compare the above map to an earlier one posted upthread by KevinFrom Texas. Does anyone see the big difference? In the earlier map, planners had wanted to "uncross" the intersection of Barton Springs Rd. & Riverside Drive. At last night's presentation, they said that was no longer feasible due to construction projects in the immediate area already underway.

Looking down on the 3-D model that was at last night's presentation.

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...s/DSC_0023.jpg

I tried to take notes, but the presentation went so fast I wasn't able to take very many, but these were a few things I jotted down.
.
Although they did acknowledge that density promotes walkability, they said that diversity of land use promoted it even more - i.e. you want to have a mix of housing and retail within close proximity to one another. I think this has been one of M1EK's complaint about Mueller. (And I think it's a valid complaint.) The big box stores are so far away from most of the housing that most people will drive to get there. People were surveyed as to what types of retail establishments they wanted to be within walking distance and the number one (75%) was a grocery store.

Nature in the city is very important. (They used the Congress Ave. Bridge bats as an example.)

75% of the region's jobs are within a 20 minute drive of the South Shore District.

Currently there are 3.5 jobs per household within the district. Planners want to bring that number down to about 1.2 - 1.4 jobs per household within the district.

It was mentioned that it would be ideal to have a lot of underground parking, but that it wasn't really financially feasible, so we might be seeing what they called the "Texas Doughnut" - 5-5 stories of retail/housing wrapped around a parking garage.

They mentioned last night that the district has about 58 street intersections per square mile and that they'd like to bring that up to about 100 intersections per square mile.

If anyone's interested, you can go to

http://www.austintexas.gov/waterfront

and sign up for their email alerts.

Thanks for the report and pics! Can you explain their thinking behind more intersections? I figure it's better for walkability, but where are they adding all of those streets/intersections?

I think it does have to do with walkability. There's nothing more maddening to be on one side of the street (especially a busy street like Riverside or South Lamar) and wanting to go somewhere right across the street, but having to walk half a mile or more to get up to an intersection with a cross walk, cross the street, and then walk all the way back down the other side of the street to get where you wanted to go.

I'm also thinking that "intersection" doesn't necessarily have to be an intersection where there is a traffic signal for cars. Near my neighborhood, there's always been a crosswalk at Prather & Manchaca, but there wasn't an actual traffic signal with "Walk" and "Don't Walk" signs. There was a painted crosswalk and one of those yellow & black "Pedestrian Crossing" signs. But you still had to be careful when you crossed there because cars always thought they had the right of way.

Now what the city has installed there is a lot safer for pedestrians. There's still no traffic lights for cars (It's basically a T-intersection) but they did install "Walk" and "Don't Walk" signs and they also installed flashing red lights above the roadway - like the kind you would see at a railroad crossing when a train is going by.

So now when a pedestrian needs to cross that intersection, they push the walk button, and those red lights above the roadway start flashing and if there's someone in the crosswalk, the cars coming in either direction have to stop. You have a set amount of time to make it across - I think it's like 20 seconds, and when the 20 seconds is up, the flashing red lights above the roadway turn off and the cars are free to proceed again. (And 20 seconds is plenty of time for that intersection because it's only 4 lanes of traffic (2 in each direction) with no median in the middle.

If it's a wider intersection with more lanes of traffic, you get more time to cross. At that section of South Lamar with Brodie Oaks Shopping Center on one side of Lamar and Lamar Oaks Shopping Center, a pedestrian is crossing 10 lanes of traffic (5 in each direction including left turn lanes with a median in the middle) you have about 45 seconds to complete your crossing.

As far as where these extra intersections would go (whether they be like the ones I described above or a traditional intersection with traffic signals for cars) I''m guessing more will be added as some of the larger tracts of land (like the Austin American Statesman tract or TXDOT's tract) get sold and redeveloped.

Crosswalks make sense. The one I immediately think of is the one on the Drag by the Co-op. I was a little thrown off by the use of intersection. Crosswalks will definitely help the walkability.

Given the particular plans for the bridge, this is a better connection for the Rainey district and really serves as a great pedestrian connection between Rainey and SoCo (the two hippest areas of Central Austin).

You can read the whole article now.

Sounds like it's still a long way from actually happening.

And btw, that presentation from the Hyatt Regency the other night is online now. The video works for me, but not the slide show presentation.

http://austintexas.gov/department/la...pecial-project

I found better versions of two of the renderings that were shown at that presentation back in May at the Hyatt, as well as some ones I hadn't seen yet here (It's the slide presentation that was shown that night, but there are some on here they didn't show - or at least I don't remember seeing them.) These were all concepts submitted the UT School of Architecture.

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...uthShore03.jpg


http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...uthShore04.jpg


]http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...uthShore01.jpg


http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...uthShore02.jpg


http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...uthShore06.jpg


http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...uthShore05.jpg

goddammitt i hope this happens one day. i always envisioned that part specifically exactly the same way everytime i'd pass by there.