AUSTIN | Projects & Construction III

[Urbannizer]

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Originally Posted by Riverranchdrone

[IMG]DJI_0937-HDR by Jason Luebbe, on Flickr[/IMG]

[Dariusb]

That shot's a real beauty!

[clubtokyo]

Incredible density in that shot and the city looks so futuristic !

[The ATX]

The Austin Business Journal just confirmed that Meta leased all of the office space in the 875' U/C Sixth & Guadalupe tower.

[Urbannizer]

Meta leases up all office space in Austin's tallest tower in historic deal


https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/n...-and-guad.html

Months of speculation have come to an end as California-based Meta Platforms Inc. — the parent company of Facebook — recently leased the entire commercial half of Sixth and Guadalupe, the 66-story high-rise under construction that will be Austin's tallest building when finished.

Meta confirmed to Austin Business Journal that it leased 589,000 square feet of office space across 33 floors at Sixth and Guadalupe, located downtown at 400 W. Sixth St. The lease was signed Dec. 31.

[DanielG425]

Originally Posted by The ATX

The Austin Business Journal just confirmed that Meta leased all of the office space in the 875' U/C Sixth & Guadalupe tower.

Woah. That's huge news. Not necessarily surprising with Facebook and google down the street, but wow.

[clubtokyo]

Austin is really becoming a tech city leader. Google, Meta, indeed and Apple with very prominent office space. The Google Sail building alone has made it’s mark on downtown Austin we’ll known.

[Dariusb]

Originally Posted by clubtokyo

Austin is really becoming a tech city leader. Google, Meta, indeed and Apple with very prominent office space. The Google Sail building alone has made it’s mark on downtown Austin we’ll known.

In the coming years Austin will have one of the best skylines/urban downtown areas in the country.

[IrvineNative]

The closest I've been to Austin is Dallas, so I'm not an expert, but here's my impressions of Austin:

1. Austin is proof positive that even if your city is super-NIMBY, you'll still grow gangbusters with good weather, low crime, low cost of living (relative to SF/LA), low taxes, and a strong corporate economy.

2. It's a myth that Austin has an inadequate expressway system.
Austin actually more expressway lane-miles per capita than Los Angeles and Sacramento. But when you're the fastest growing major metro area in the country, no matter how fast you build freeways, you're not going to keep up with demand.

3. Austin drivers avoid toll roads like the plague, so the toll roads end up being nearly empty while the free roads get clogged like hell.

4. People keep complaining about SH 130 being too far from Downtown to be useful. But SH 130 was literally built as a bypass, and a bypass is literally designed to go around the edge of the city. The problem with SH 130 is that tolls are too damn high, so no one uses it and instead clogs up I-35 and MoPac.

5. Lowering tolls on SH 130 to divert all thru traffic off I-35 onto SH 130 would work wonders. The Texas Transportation Institute studied that at the busiest portion of I-35, 14 percent or so of traffic is thru traffic (i.e. just passing through Austin). Now that sounds minute, but reducing car count by 14 percent would likely reduce traffic congestion by a whopping 45 percent. Because it turns out that decreasing vehicle count by 10% often reduces traffic congestion by three or even four times the factor (30-40%).

6. I have extremely high hopes for Project Connect. I believe that, after Los Angeles and Seattle, it will, hands down, have the highest ridership of any light rail system in the US once complete. Why? Because not only is Austin proper densifying like a weed, Metro Austin employment is highly concentrated in Downtown. Metro areas with the highest concentration of jobs in Downtown do the best with transit ridership.

[clubtokyo]

Austin is a city of the future and yes it has issues but get back to me in 20 years and tell me if Austin did bad, I honestly think it will be the city folks look up to outside of, with exceptions of this NYC, Chicago, Seattle and I guess LA lol

[R1070]

Originally Posted by IrvineNative

The closest I've been to Austin is Dallas, so I'm not an expert, but here's my impressions of Austin:

1. Austin is proof positive that even if your city is super-NIMBY, you'll still grow gangbusters with good weather, low crime, low cost of living (relative to SF/LA), low taxes, and a strong corporate economy.

2. It's a myth that Austin has an inadequate expressway system.
Austin actually more expressway lane-miles per capita than Los Angeles and Sacramento. But when you're the fastest growing major metro area in the country, no matter how fast you build freeways, you're not going to keep up with demand.

3. Austin drivers avoid toll roads like the plague, so the toll roads end up being nearly empty while the free roads get clogged like hell.

4. People keep complaining about SH 130 being too far from Downtown to be useful. But SH 130 was literally built as a bypass, and a bypass is literally designed to go around the edge of the city. The problem with SH 130 is that tolls are too damn high, so no one uses it and instead clogs up I-35 and MoPac.

5. Lowering tolls on SH 130 to divert all thru traffic off I-35 onto SH 130 would work wonders. The Texas Transportation Institute studied that at the busiest portion of I-35, 14 percent or so of traffic is thru traffic (i.e. just passing through Austin). Now that sounds minute, but reducing car count by 14 percent would likely reduce traffic congestion by a whopping 45 percent. Because it turns out that decreasing vehicle count by 10% often reduces traffic congestion by three or even four times the factor (30-40%).

6. I have extremely high hopes for Project Connect. I believe that, after Los Angeles and Seattle, it will, hands down, have the highest ridership of any light rail system in the US once complete. Why? Because not only is Austin proper densifying like a weed, Metro Austin employment is highly concentrated in Downtown. Metro areas with the highest concentration of jobs in Downtown do the best with transit ridership.

Good points, but DFW is the fastest growing metro in the country.

[The ATX]

Originally Posted by R1070

Good points, but DFW is the fastest growing metro in the country.

Fastest growing implies a growth rate percentage, and Austin is the fastest growing large Metro by that measure.
Dallas/FW has been having the biggest increase in raw numbers. It has a slower growth rate but a much larger Metro population. That means it can have a bigger increase in raw numbers. So it depends which metric is used.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by The ATX

Fastest growing implies a growth rate percentage, and Austin is the fastest growing large Metro by that measure.
Dallas/FW has been having the biggest increase in raw numbers. It has a slower growth rate but a much larger Metro population. That means it can have a bigger increase in raw numbers. So it depends which metric is used.

Put more simply:

Austin has the fastest growth, Dallas has the largest growth.

[The ATX]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Put more simply:

Austin has the fastest growth, Dallas has the largest growth.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by IrvineNative

The closest I've been to Austin is Dallas, so I'm not an expert, but here's my impressions of Austin:

1. Austin is proof positive that even if your city is super-NIMBY, you'll still grow gangbusters with good weather, low crime, low cost of living (relative to SF/LA), low taxes, and a strong corporate economy.

2. It's a myth that Austin has an inadequate expressway system.
Austin actually more expressway lane-miles per capita than Los Angeles and Sacramento. But when you're the fastest growing major metro area in the country, no matter how fast you build freeways, you're not going to keep up with demand.

3. Austin drivers avoid toll roads like the plague, so the toll roads end up being nearly empty while the free roads get clogged like hell.

4. People keep complaining about SH 130 being too far from Downtown to be useful. But SH 130 was literally built as a bypass, and a bypass is literally designed to go around the edge of the city. The problem with SH 130 is that tolls are too damn high, so no one uses it and instead clogs up I-35 and MoPac.

5. Lowering tolls on SH 130 to divert all thru traffic off I-35 onto SH 130 would work wonders. The Texas Transportation Institute studied that at the busiest portion of I-35, 14 percent or so of traffic is thru traffic (i.e. just passing through Austin). Now that sounds minute, but reducing car count by 14 percent would likely reduce traffic congestion by a whopping 45 percent. Because it turns out that decreasing vehicle count by 10% often reduces traffic congestion by three or even four times the factor (30-40%).

6. I have extremely high hopes for Project Connect. I believe that, after Los Angeles and Seattle, it will, hands down, have the highest ridership of any light rail system in the US once complete. Why? Because not only is Austin proper densifying like a weed, Metro Austin employment is highly concentrated in Downtown. Metro areas with the highest concentration of jobs in Downtown do the best with transit ridership.

Austin has just hit a major bottleneck these last couple of years between growth and supply as housing/rent has had some of the largest increases.

Austin still has plenty of space. You mentioned SH130, but 183S (the section which runs parallel between I35 and SH130) has recently been upgraded along with a toll road. The issue is greater east Austin never really develop until recently, but I feel like it's about to blow up with houses, apartments, and retail.

[IrvineNative]

Originally Posted by TexasPlaya

Austin has just hit a major bottleneck these last couple of years between growth and supply as housing/rent has had some of the largest increases.

Austin still has plenty of space. You mentioned SH130, but 183S (the section which runs parallel between I35 and SH130) has recently been upgraded along with a toll road. The issue is greater east Austin never really develop until recently, but I feel like it's about to blow up with houses, apartments, and retail.

Yes, I heard about 183S being upgraded to become a toll road. Which busts the myth that Austin has very few expressways for a metro of its size or isn't building any new expressways.

Los Angeles and Sacramento have very few expressways for a metro of their size, and aren't building any new ones. Ever. Good luck trying to get arterials upgraded to expressways in LA. Unlike Texas, California self-flagellates itself for sprawl and thinks new freeways are the Devil.

Housing stats change so fast its hard to keep up, but IIRC, San Diego and Los Angeles home prices have rose even faster than Dallas (and probably Austin) home prices, despite Metro Austin growing 10x faster than Metro LA!

[Dale]

What does downtown Austin’s street retail looking like ? Are retail spaces in newly completed projects filling up ?

[The ATX]

Austin has at least three towers between 640' & 675' breaking ground this quarter.


The 640' 415 Colorado tower got underway this week with barriers for street closures for Demo and construction going up around the site.




The 675' 321 West tower gets underway next week with street closures around the site for Demo and construction scheduled for Friday. The final renderings have not been released, but it will be similar to this previous rendering.




The 658' Modern Austin tower is financed with a 03/21 groundbreaking. The developer is letting the two bars on the site to host SXSW events before closing; hence the March groundbreaking.

[Urbannizer]

98 Red River





6 X Guadalupe













The Republic

[clubtokyo]

6x looking real good!