[Syndic]

Wow. Those GreenWater renderings are the coolest thing I've ever seen on this forum, hands down. That development will change how Austin is perceived for good. None of us will look at our city the same way again. It will lead to Austin having a completed downtown, which is such an insane notion to me.

I may be the lone exception here, but I like the buildings immensely. I'm usually against similar or identical-looking towers, but I'm okay with this, for some reason. It just feels cool and something worth making an exception for. The height doesn't bother me, either. Guys, if we get this all built, we'll be an incredibly lucky city. The whole project is incredibly complex and elaborate. The Times Square-ish video boards on the outside of the one building are an amazing feature. That area is going to be so trendy and hopping in 2015.

Per Shonda Novak's Statesman piece yesterday, I added up all of the hotel rooms and residences that all of these buildings in the works would create and it added up to like 5,100. Think about that. 5,100+ new pedestrians populating downtown Austin. That's a lot of people. And that's not even including any of the offices or retail. In the end, we could be looking at close to 10,000 more people downtown. Tiny little downtown! 10,000 more people! By 2016! We need urban rail, ASAP. Otherwise, it's going to be hard to accommodate all of them. But it really could lead to a pretty intense pedestrian environment. There's going to be people everywhere. Hopefully, this leads to a deepening of Austin's culture.