Austin | River Park - 4700 Riverside (Formerly Project Catalyst) | Proposed
 

OMFG. The Chamber, City and State better be all over this as Amazon HQ2.


https://i.imgur.com/SoIJHiJ.png
https://i.imgur.com/6CoI5wO.png
https://i.imgur.com/CaBhn9o.png
https://i.imgur.com/W05pOVP.png
https://i.imgur.com/0t1z5f6.png
https://i.imgur.com/Z9wCXaq.png
Vimeo promo video: https://vimeo.com/182609285

Well, there we go.

• Video Link

That is completely NOT what I got from the initial marketing materials. So much bigger! Yowza!

Well then. Looks like the city can basically offer Amazon the chance to be a catalyst and essentially have their own downtown with mixed-used amenities for employees. We've been speaking of the domain as a sort of second downtown but this skyline would surely be more visible from the current core. If this vision can be even 50 percent filled, the Austin's downtown CBD will essentially have two focal points. And then imagine South Shore spurring more development across the river, downtown Austin's footprint could expand immensely.

Wow!

Here's another rendering and a building massing from the video linked to in the OP. The video features a lot of happy millennials. :haha: I can't imagine a better Amazon option than this one which just happened to be a thing already.

https://i.imgur.com/sZkHx3P.png
https://i.imgur.com/4rltVdS.png

For height are we thinking a lot of mid-rises with maybe a ~300 ft tower. Some of those slender buildings look to be 20 floors or so. I'd love to see it be city-style density rather than a more traditional campus. Assuming this is where Amazon decides to expand, which isn't written in stone by any means. I like our chances though haha

According to the ABJ article linked to through Reddit in my Amazon HQ2 post, they are looking for zoning for 20-story buildings. Amazon H2Q could change that though.

This also begs for a Riverside rail route to connect ABIA to downtown. I could see an elevated station straddling Pleasant Valley Rd. between the eastward and westward lanes of Riverside.

This. It really couldn't be more convenient for a rail expansion -- just go ahead and build that airport spur and plunk down an Amazon station or two while you're at it.

Honestly this is the kind of thing I would bet (hope?) Amazon is looking for . . . a city with public transportation prospects as much as a fully built out system. Let's face it -- very few American cities really do rail transit well, and virtually none save the usual suspects have rail transit that will serve 50k workers in any meaningful capacity. So if Amazon wants to consider a wider field it has to consider itself not only a user of transit but a partner in its development as well.

So remind me . . . all of this land is currently being used to house students, right?

Now this is what a "second downtown" should look like! That location is crying out for new development. NIMBYs not even a factor! Let's get this done. It will kick start the refurbishment of the entire area between Oltorf and Riverside too. This could make Austin a whole other place, a much better place. It would also pretty much guarantee rail to the airport.

Very cool.

Any thoughts on the video being a year old?

Only that I'm wondering why it took a year to find the video. :)

I'm going to throw cold water on this. I don't really buy it. Both as a "second downtown" and as the one true answer to Amazon's rfp.

I don't mean that it's not a positive and useful development, just that it seems like marketing is a little out of control on it.

It's 79 acres (though really only 49 acres according to reddit description, I guess due to the floodplain).
So it's 1/4 or less the size of the Domain. Just the Domain, much less the whole surrounding North Burnet Gateway development.

The ABJ article from last year talks about "Nine million square feet of total development potential"(no details, eg how much of that depends on affordable housing etc.), but they seem to have walked that back pretty significantly, since the more recent flyer is now down to 1.4M.

The original 9M estimate seems to assume a _huge_ up-zoning from it's already recent rezoning. From what I can tell from the ERC master plan, most of the tract is Neighborhood Mixed Use zoned with a ~60 foot height limits.


Now, could that change, sure. Especially if it actually is decided to advance this is as the Amazon answer. But it's certainly not turn key. Nor is it greenfield (there's a bunch of apartments there now).


Edit: Actually, it's worse than I thought. On second look, it seems like at least half of the current ERC zoning is urban residential, with a .75 FAR and 40 foot limit.

Nimes Capital owns this site, aka the Ballpark Apartments, and was working with JLL late last year to either sell it or find a partner to redevelop it. JLL made that video as part of the sales marketing. I have heard that the site is under contract to sell to an apartment investor. However, I would guess if Nimes sees the opportunity to make a play for Amazon and they are not already locked in on the sale, they might be able to cancel the sales contract depending on where they are in the process - there may be some fees involved. But as Novacek said there are a lot of hurdles with that land. If the existing contract goes through the buyer is just buying it for the apartments as an investment. They are not a developer and are not planning to demolish anything or redevelop.

Here's a link to the September 2016 ABJ article. It's not paywalled, but you need a free login to read it.

https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/n...st-austin.html

As nice as this would be, the area encompassing Pleasant Valley, Riverside, Wickersham, and Elmont is pretty small. On top of that, the amount of congestion there is already bad, especially without immediate highway or mass transport options. Riverside is already a 24 hour street and has heavy traffic well into the evening hours. On top of that, the amount of transients that live under the bridge on Riverside right here and in the woods, this area would require "The Ark 2".

With that said, the area is centrally located and is very close to both downtown and the airport. The area is also gentrifying quickly and there are numerous high budget apartments and residences going up in the area. It would be interesting to see this area transform into something like depicted.

This is obviously just a grand vision, and I never saw any permits or zoning change requests for 20-story buildings. But I am hoping the site is still available for a potential H2Q bid. This location seems like a better option than any other one that comes to mind IMO.

Poor Domain...... I'm sure they will be hurt that so many abandoned them as the "second downtown"!

Surely they would include "light rail" from the airport up Riverside into downtown in the proposal. The one major item Austin is totally lacking on Amazon's "checklist" for the potential location, is mass transit.

TOWERS sums this up. He did try to contact the parties involved with the project.

http://austin.towers.net/project-cat...e-next-domain/