Downtown's skyline has changed a lot in recent years, but the biggest buildings are still to come
By Colin Pope – Editor, Austin Business Journal
Aug 9, 2018, 10:00pm CDT
Downtown Austin is changing by the minute. Here's a recap of the bigger projects on the horizon. Some of them can only be seen in our crystal ball at this point, but a few have already started making their way toward the sky.
The biggest of them all
6 x Guadalupe would be 837 feet high — 66 stories — and the tallest building in Austin if it gets the city permits required. Go ahead, dive into the slideshow for a closer look at the renderings. It looks like a taller tower is being blocked by a smaller one, but it's actually planned as apartments and offices stacked atop each other. This promised skyscraper boasts an acre of parks in the sky, beaucoup parking and the region's highest pool.
The obvious new kid on the block
Until the previous skyscraper rises, the Independent stands tall as Austin's current high-rise king. And it just took the throne from The Austonian, which laid claim to tallest building in Austin for about eight years. That's quite a run in this town nowadays. Real estate reporter Marissa Luck and photographer Arnold Wells went to the top of the almost-complete condo tower and brought back the photos above. I don't know how much Hasbro owes the owners, but Austinites will keep the Jenga game top-of-mind forever.
And to The Republic...
... here's where it stands. This one is hot off the digital press. Renderings of The Republic were just submitted to City Hall for this tower catty-corner to the W Austin hotel and just south of Republic Square Park. The initial site plan submitted to the city for 401 W. Fourth St. calls for 711,401 square feet of office and 21,463 square feet of retail. Travis County wanted to build a new courthouse there but taxpayers weren't having it. So now Travis County has settled on a new site for our county courthouse.
A new county courthouse
Travis County is negotiating with a developer to build a new courthouse at 1700 Guadalupe St. It will house civil and family courts. A team comprised of Hunt Development Group LLC, CGL Companies, Chameleon Companies, Hensel Phelps Construction Co. and Gensler would design, develop and construct the new courthouse. The 1.46-acre site is bound by West 17th Street on the south, San Antonio Street on the west, West 18th Street on the north and Guadalupe Street on the east. It includes two surface parking lots and was once home to the Dog & Duck Pub.
70 Rainey has risen
Towering over the historic bungalows of Rainey Street, a 34-story skyscraper is taking shape — contractors expect to complete the 70 Rainey luxury condominium high-rise by the end of this year. Developer Sackman Enterprises Inc. said it has sold half of the building’s 164 condos, and it expects residents to begin moving in by early 2019.
The next tower for Rainey
The developers behind a 33-story condo tower in the Rainey Street Historic District said they plan to break ground on the project by the end of the year. Executives with Pearlstone Partners — formerly Lee Development and Construction — said the project at 48 East Ave. is fully permitted. When we last checked in four months ago, the partners were finalizing financing on the tower, estimated to cost between $140 million to $150 million to build.
More for Rainey Street?
A New York-based investment group is searching for partners to help it bring to life what would be the biggest private development in downtown Austin. McCourt Global is seeking new partners on its proposed $1 billion complex called Waller Park Place at the intersection of Red River and East Cesar Chavez streets, Real Estate Alert reports. The mega-sized mixed-use project could dramatically reshape the historic Rainey Street neighborhood, opening up space for hundreds more office workers and residents downtown. The site is across Cesar Chavez from Iron Works BBQ, right near Lady Bird Lake, and McCourt Global executives think Waller Park Place could encompass more than 3 million square feet of residential, commercial and office space — roughly the equivalent of six Frost Bank Towers on the site. The tallest tower on the tract is expected to exceed 50 stories.
And now for something completely different
The four-story Blueprint building — named that because it used to be Miller Blueprints, where all the architects used to print plans for all this stuff — is nearly done with its transformation on West Sixth Street. It will be a hub for eating and entertainment on a stretch of road already known for its nightlife. TenTen, a Japanese restaurant, is set to take the bottom floor. The second Austin-area location of The Goodnight, a combination bar-and-bowling hangout, is planned for the second floor. An upscale cocktail lounge called Mayfair is set to open on the third floor later this year. The fourth floor will be an event venue.
A big one, indeed
Indeed Inc. plans to hire 3,000 people in Austin over the next several years and has inked a major lease at this future 36-story downtown office tower. The massive expansion would make Indeed one of the largest tech employers in the Texas capital and add to its already extensive office footprint. Indeed will lease the top 10 floors of Block 71, the office tower under construction at the intersection of Sixth Street and Colorado Avenue by developer Trammell Crow Company.
The building that went boom
This is the older building demolished to make room for that glass-laden Indeed tower. We haven't had a good ol' downtown implosion since the "Intel shell" was sort of taken down in 2007.
Here's what's replacing Austin Music Hall
The Third + Shoal office tower — near The Independent, new library and Google’s tower — is being finished out now but has already raked in big-name office tenants such as Facebook and Bank of America. New York investment firm Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners took the top floor.
SXSW finds a new home
South by Southwest is building a 12-story headquarters at 1400 Lavaca St. At last check, the building will offer some of the space to other creative companies. The small site was previously occupied by the Texas Restaurant Association, which moved to I-35.
300 Colorado all booked up
Riverside Resources Corp., Ironwood Real Estate and Cousins Properties Inc. are expected to start construction soon on a skyscraper for the corner of Colorado and Third streets. The project is known as 300 Colorado Office. They want to redevelop the property, until recently a Sullivan’s Steakhouse, into a 32-story office tower with about 390,000 square feet of space. More details are here. Fourteen of the building’s 32 floors may be dedicated to parking. Parsley Energy Inc., a highly active oil driller and one of the few headquartered in Austin, announced in January it leased all of the office space.
Zaza rises
Probably in early 2019, this 24-story tower on West Fourth Street near Lavaca Street will swing open its doors. Gables Residential and Z Resorts Management will offer more than 200 apartments and more than 150 rooms via a Hotel ZaZa. Shops will line the bottom.
50 more stories here?
Another one for the Rainey Street area. There aren't renderings of this one yet, but here's the site where Genesis Real Estate plans to build an apartment tower — on the site of the vacant Villas on Town Lake condos in the center. That's Kimpton's Hotel Van Zandt on the left and Lady Bird Lake immediately behind. This one is expected to rise about 50 stories.
Have you crossed The Line?
We Austinites will likely call this the Radisson for years to come. You know, the hotel next to the Congress Avenue Bridge on First Street near Town Lake that used to have the TGI Friday's? But it's the Line Austin now, and much more refined. Beyond a complete redesign of nearly every inch of the hotel, there’s a new restaurant called Arlo Grey led by Kristen Kish, winner of season 10 of Bravo’s "Top Chef," and a new café, Alfred. A rooftop lounge called P6 is expected to open this fall with views of Town Lake — I mean Lady Bird Lake.
Speaking of new hotels
A Hilton Canopy hotel will rise on West Sixth amongst hip bars such as Star Bar, Little Woodrow's and Kung Fu Saloon. Though company officials didn’t divulge the project’s price tag, it’s estimated to cost $31 million, according to state records, and is expected to be completed by 2020.
What will become of the Statesman site?
In March, more firms were named in the plan to redevelop the home of the Austin American-Statesman newspaper. Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP, a Chicago-based architecture and urban planning firm, has been named master planner, and CMG Landscape Architecture of San Francisco has been brought on to handle landscape architecture. A mix of offices, homes, shops and perhaps a hotel are envisioned rising on the 19-acre site — about 2.1 million square feet in all. It's one of the largest infill projects. Endeavor Real Estate Group of Austin was last year named the master developer for the Statesman site.
Plaza Saltillo — and a Whole Foods Market — rises
Endeavor won't just expand the bounds of downtown with the redevelopment of the Statesman site to the south. On the east end of downtown, the developer is building big at Plaza Saltillo, which is just east of I-35 near Fifth Street. Whole Foods Market Inc. plans to bring a 365 store. It will eat up a modest 30,000 square feet, according to the Austin American-Statesman. That's a typical size for the smaller 365 by Whole Foods Market stores opening across the country. The Plaza Saltillo District is a 10-acre site that surrounds one of Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority's train stops.
Our new medical district
If you haven't been to the area around the Frank Erwin Center on the north side of downtown in over a year you're in for a huge shock. Except for the Erwin Center itself, it's all different due to the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas. No more tennis courts, and the parking lot that used to house all the animal trailers when the Ringling Bros. Circus came to town is now a gleaming new teaching hospital.
By Colin Pope – Editor, Austin Business Journal
Aug 9, 2018, 10:00pm CDT
https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2018/08/09/20-skyscraping-changes-coming-to-austin.html
Prev
Linear Mode
