AUSTIN | Waterline | 1,034 Feet | 73 Floors | T/O

[JACKinBeantown]

Originally Posted by Spaceman

Amen Hill Country...Do all cities develop projects as slowly as Austin?

No, but then you end up with cities like Houston and Atlanta.

[Spaceman]

Originally Posted by JACKinBeantown

No, but then you end up with cities like Houston and Atlanta.

Both have great skylines so I don't understand your concern

[JACKinBeantown]

A city is more than its skyline. Austin is a great city, including the liveability of its downtown. Houston's downtown is generally more a place to go to an office and then leave for the night (for the most part). I can't speak to Atlanta's but I do know that both Houston and Atlanta have horrible traffic and other problems associated with cities that grew fast without proper planning. I'm all for Austin's skyline continuing to grow, but not at the expense of what has made Austin special for a long, long time.

Keep Austin weird!

[Syndic]

Hear, hear.

And +1 for using "Keep Austin Weird" in the correct context; i.e. "Keep Austin Unlike All of the Other Big Cities in Texas". People so often misunderstand what that saying is supposed to mean.

[The ATX]

No new info here. But an update to the Site Plan was filed Wednesday. At least this one continues to move forward. Hopefully it won't be downgraded any more than it has already been based on the rendering history.

https://www.austintexas.gov/devrevie...erRSN=11055030

[lzppjb]

Originally Posted by Syndic

Hear, hear.

And +1 for using "Keep Austin Weird" in the correct context; i.e. "Keep Austin Unlike All of the Other Big Cities in Texas". People so often misunderstand what that saying is supposed to mean.

I always thought it was the slogan for local businesses. We try to buy local instead of at chains.

[Jdawgboy]

Originally Posted by Syndic

Hear, hear.

And +1 for using "Keep Austin Weird" in the correct context; i.e. "Keep Austin Unlike All of the Other Big Cities in Texas". People so often misunderstand what that saying is supposed to mean.

But in this case this has nothing to do with the other big Texas cities. Do you see skyscrapers randomly placed throughout the city? Do you see Downtown surrounded by expressways on all sides? Austin is building unlike the other Texas cities so I don't see you or JACKinBeantown's point. What's wrong with getting projects like Waller Park Place going. A project that is within the CBD, not out somewhere in Austin or on the fringes? In this case, I think we have waited long enough for this project to get going. If it doesn't get going soon then it won't get going at all, but then maybe that's what you both want in the end. Keep Austin Weird circa 1985..

[Jdawgboy]

Originally Posted by JACKinBeantown

A city is more than its skyline. Austin is a great city, including the liveability of its downtown. Houston's downtown is generally more a place to go to an office and then leave for the night (for the most part). I can't speak to Atlanta's but I do know that both Houston and Atlanta have horrible traffic and other problems associated with cities that grew fast without proper planning. I'm all for Austin's skyline continuing to grow, but not at the expense of what has made Austin special for a long, long time.

Keep Austin weird!

You must have not been to Austin in awhile because we already have horrible traffic and bad planing as far as that's concerned.

We can do both, build up and dense as well as keeping Austin weird.

[Syndic]

Originally Posted by lzppjb

I always thought it was the slogan for local businesses. We try to buy local instead of at chains.

Well, what do you think of when you think of Houston and Dallas? Strip malls and suburban sprawl. So, yes, supporting local business is definitely part of being different from Houston and Dallas.

[Syndic]

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

But in this case this has nothing to do with the other big Texas cities. Do you see skyscrapers randomly placed throughout the city? Do you see Downtown surrounded by expressways on all sides? Austin is building unlike the other Texas cities so I don't see you or JACKinBeantown's point. What's wrong with getting projects like Waller Park Place going. A project that is within the CBD, not out somewhere in Austin or on the fringes? In this case, I think we have waited long enough for this project to get going. If it doesn't get going soon then it won't get going at all, but then maybe that's what you both want in the end. Keep Austin Weird circa 1985..

I'm pretty sure you misinterpreted what JACKinBeantown was saying. I don't think he was criticizing this development, just saying that not all urban development is created equal. If we have a bunch of office development with no residential development (like Houston and Atlanta) then it will be dysfunctional.

[Spaceman]

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

You must have not been to Austin in awhile because we already have horrible traffic and bad planing as far as that's concerned.

We can do both, build up and dense as well as keeping Austin weird.

Tell'um dog...I sometimes doubt the fervor of some of the contributors to this site....Quit worrying about the social impact of every project and how it affects every diverse group in town...Just build it, LET MONEY HAVE ITS WAY!!!

[atxdweller]

Originally Posted by Spaceman

Tell'um dog...I sometimes doubt the fervor of some of the contributors to this site....Quit worrying about the social impact of every project and how it affects every diverse group in town...Just build it, LET MONEY HAVE ITS WAY!!!

"Doubt the fervor"? I didn't realize when I signed up that I was taking a vow to support all development at any cost, the bigger the better. But I do get the vibe that there's a strong party line here.

[jg6544]

Originally Posted by jackinbeantown

a city is more than its skyline. Austin is a great city, including the liveability of its downtown. Houston's downtown is generally more a place to go to an office and then leave for the night (for the most part). I can't speak to atlanta's but i do know that both houston and atlanta have horrible traffic and other problems associated with cities that grew fast without proper planning. I'm all for austin's skyline continuing to grow, but not at the expense of what has made austin special for a long, long time.

Keep austin weird!

hear hear!

[MightyYoda]

Originally Posted by atxdweller

"Doubt the fervor"? I didn't realize when I signed up that I was taking a vow to support all development at any cost, the bigger the better. But I do get the vibe that there's a strong party line here.

I think most here don't want to build at any cost, any-where. I think a lot of people are generally short-tempered because of all the downgrades to proposals or starting projects lately.

[GoldenBoot]

Yes...some Austin developments have seemed to have caught a "bug." Both the Fairmont and 5th & Brazos have been reduced by ~10 levels and ~100' from their original designs.

Hummm...Both developers begin with the letter "M" (Manchester & Magellan, respectively).

Who's next? Block 24? 99 Trinity? Waller Center?

[Jdawgboy]

Sorry if I sounded a bit harsh, that wasn't my intention, but there is a problem that many people in Austin (not really on SSP) equate highrise development in DT let alone any sort of vmu development as being anti-Austin and destroying it's weirdness. Fact is its the people and the culture that makes the city weird, not its buildings. Sure there are area's worth preserveing, but sometimes that goes a bit overboard when NA's try to get historical landmark status for regular houses that have no historical context whatsoever. They are simply using it as a way to keep development out. It's being misused and I for one think that should stop.

I agree that a mixture of everything is important for DT to be vibrant and we are well on our way. Waller Park Place has office, residential and retail so I was just a bit confused by some of the statements, not to mention that we have been waiting for almost 2 years since first announced.

[JACKinBeantown]

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

You must have not been to Austin in awhile because we already have horrible traffic and bad planing as far as that's concerned.

We can do both, build up and dense as well as keeping Austin weird.

You're right on both counts.

I wasn't slamming this project. I just meant that it's important to act rather than react. When I was a kid growing up in San Antonio, Austin had an unofficial motto: anti-growth. To really generalize, that in a nutshell is what kept Austin weird/cool and in the end made it popular. It has grown faster than anyone could have imagined. Its traffic is horrible as you said, but at least there's the beginning of a rail based transit system (unlike San Antonio). Hopefully those new to Austin (i.e. - the last 15-20 years) can imagine what Austin was like before they moved there and if they are in a position to do so, help plan for future growth that helps Austin stay Austin.

[Syndic]

I'm a native Austinite (though my parents weren't) who was born here in the early 80's. I don't remember Austin being anti-growth. Fact is, fewer people wanted to move here back then. It was just seen as a shitty, sleepy mid-sized college town, like Omaha or something. It only started becoming trendy in about 1999 when suddenly it was given the moniker "The Live Music Capital of the World". The fact that we embraced that nickname seems like good proof that Austinites were not anti-growth. Because it sort of took off from there. I've never been anti-growth. I think urbanism is what makes Austin different than the rest of the cities in Texas, which have always been incredibly sprawl-oriented. So, those people who oppose urban development in Austin are confused about who Austin is and they probably should just go back to whatever crappy big city they came from. Everybody hates a tourist. Austin's size has never been what made it weird. What makes it weird is its personality. It's size is incidental.

[JACKinBeantown]

I was talking about before you were born. Naturally you wouldn't remember. And I wasn't talking about its size, I was talking about its growth.

What was this thread about again?

Hear hear!

[austlar1]

Austin did not just become an appealing place where people wanted to live in the late 1990s. Generation after generation of UT students have been falling in love with this place since before I was born (1946). Back in the mid 1960s a very common refrain was something along the lines of "I would love to live here or stay here, but there is no way to earn a living." In short, Austin was long on charm and short on economic opportunities unless you were an academic or wanted to be an underpaid (at the time certainly) state bureaucrat. Austin started to evolve economically in the 1970s, and it was suddenly a place filled with opportunity. It was also from the 1960s on perceived as a great place to drop out and do your thing. The music scene slowly evolved, but it got started back in the late 60s or early 70s during the era of the Armadillo World Headquarters. The movie "Slackers" (filmed 1989 and released 1991) captured a bit of that alternative Austin, and it kind of tipped off the rest of the world to something that Texans knew long ago. Austin was weird long before the slogan got popularized. There is a great novel called "The Gay Place" by Billy Lee Brammer that is set in Austin and was written in the late 1950s or early 1960s. It really describes a lot of what was going on here at that time. It is a great novel, a political novel supposedly, but really a book about a place that is recognizably Austin. No, it is not about gay life. The word gay meant something different to most folks at the time the book was written.