[KevinFromTexas]

http://www.statesman.com/business/do...inglePage=true

Downtown Austin matures into vibrant residential area

By Gary Dinges and Shonda Novak
Published: 8:52 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 9, 2012

Developer Perry Lorenz recalls how it wasn't so long ago as recently as the mid- to late 1990s that very few people were living downtown "and of those that were, about 20 percent of them lived at the county jail," he said.

Aside from clubs clustered along a couple blocks in the entertainment district and a few restaurants scattered here and there, not much was open after dark.

The addition of almost 20 residential high-rises in the past decade has helped change all that, adding nearly 4,800 apartments and condos downtown — and construction is expected to begin on several more multifamily projects in the next few months.

Those additional residents are helping to attract more shopping and dining options to the area. In addition to bolstering the city's tax base and providing environmental benefits, downtown's growth also has helped attract technology companies — a ripple effect that pays dividends for the area's economy, experts say.

City leaders, developers and downtown residents say the central business district has matured, surviving its gawky teenage years and making the transition into young adulthood. "Downtown is really firing on virtually every cylinder — residential, retail, entertainment, employment," said former Mayor Will Wynn, a downtown resident and a supporter of the city having a dense urban core. "It may look and feel clumsy and cumbersome at times, but it's working. We've passed the tipping point."