Austin | The Republic | 710 Feet | 47 Floors | U/C - Page 10

GoldenBoot · #**181** Posted **Jul 24, 2013, 8:47 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/bl...ign-build.html

Proof that "leaders" of this region are not creative and fear innovation. I cannot believe the court actually said they did not want to be the first county P3 in Texas!

KevinFromTexas · #**182** Posted **Jul 24, 2013, 9:17 PM**

So what is this going to do to the prospect of there being another tower sharing the block with the courthouse? It's just such a large vacant block and seems like a huge waste to only have one building on it.

And no more plazas. That area of downtown has enough of them plus Republic Square Park, and it needs an injection of street level retail to boost the liveliness of it.

One of the things I read about on Statesman with people commenting on the new central public library and courthouse is that the new locations will also be havens for the homeless. Of course that is not true, although having a bunch of large plazas does encourage it. The reason for the homeless population at the existing central library is because it's right around the corner from the criminal justice center. Which is one of the other reasons why they want to move the civil courthouse away from it. You don't get homeless people hanging around a civil courthouse like you do around a criminal courthouse. Those people get released from jail and have no place to go, so they just hang around. Civil courthouses of course are different in that they deal with things like marriage licenses, marriages and divorces and other civil disputes.

GoldenBoot · #**183** Posted **Jul 24, 2013, 9:48 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

So what is this going to do to the prospect of there being another tower sharing the block with the courthouse?

The county bought the entire block. When they decided not to partner with a private entity, the idea of a larger development on the site was basically killed.

As the block was sold as one piece of land, to sell a section of it off, the county would have to parcel a section off (at a public cost). If this were anywhere in Travis County’s plan, then they would have simply entered into a P3.

The county seems to be eager to begin the construction of a new courthouse. Entering into a P3 would have delayed the process and the commissioners probably feared the outcome of a bond election to fund the county's portion of the agreement.

Basically, the county took the easy road…at the cost of the citizens of Travis County. A P3 may have yielded millions in tax revenue for the city and county.

austlar1 · #**184** Posted **Jul 25, 2013, 2:31 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoldenBoot

The county bought the entire block. When they decided not to partner with a private entity, the idea of a larger development on the site was basically killed.

As the block was sold as one piece of land, to sell a section of it off, the county would have to parcel a section off (at a public cost). If this were anywhere in Travis County’s plan, then they would have simply entered into a P3.

The county seems to be eager to begin the construction of a new courthouse. Entering into a P3 would have delayed the process and the commissioners probably feared the outcome of a bond election to fund the county's portion of the agreement.

Basically, the county took the easy road…at the cost of the citizens of Travis County. A P3 may have yielded millions in tax revenue for the city and county.

Could you explain in more detail why the county would encounter costs in parceling off part of the property in question? It seems like a sale of part of that property would recoup some of the original cost of the land. I am not clear about what you meant to say in your post.

MightyYoda · #**185** Posted **Jul 25, 2013, 4:38 PM**

Can the city be a pain in the butt and make it hard or reject the plan for the county courthouse? Using that whole block would be a waste and maybe that would make them rethink the "easy" way out.

KevinFromTexas · #**186** Posted **Aug 2, 2013, 1:57 AM**

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/bl....html?page=all

Quote:

Aug 1, 2013, 12:21pm CDT
New Travis County court building: let the competition begin

Jan Buchholz
Staff Writer-
Austin Business Journal

It’s hard to know how many architects will submit request for qualifications to Travis County to design a new courts and office building, but from the looks of it, the competition will be intense.

About 40 companies — everyone from engineers to general contractors to architects — showed up for a pre-proposal conference July 31, including a prominent Denver design firm.

LoneStarMike · #**187** Posted **Aug 2, 2013, 3:21 AM**

^^^ OK, I'm confused. The article above is not for the courthouse planned for Republic Square. It's for one at 416 W. 11th St. over by the Criminal Justice Center. It would only be 7 stories and 130k sf and have a tunnel connecting it to the Criminal Justice Center. Are they building this one instead of the one planned for Republic Square or in addition to it?

My guess is it's in addition to the one planned for Republic Square.

OK never mind - the article is referring to the Travis County Court Office building. It doesn't sound like there will actually be any courtrooms in it.

KevinFromTexas · #**188** Posted **Aug 2, 2013, 5:24 AM**

Yeah, it's in addition to it. The only reason I posted it here was they've also had talk of creating a master plan for the "campus". A couple of the articles talked about planned future growth. I posted it a while back. There were some massing/diagrams showing the building sizes.

AusTex · #**189** Posted **Aug 3, 2013, 6:09 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoneStarMike

^^^ OK, I'm confused. The article above is not for the courthouse planned for Republic Square. It's for one at 416 W. 11th St. over by the Criminal Justice Center. It would only be 7 stories and 130k sf and have a tunnel connecting it to the Criminal Justice Center. Are they building this one instead of the one planned for Republic Square or in addition to it?

My guess is it's in addition to the one planned for Republic Square.

OK never mind - the article is referring to the Travis County Court Office building. It doesn't sound like there will actually be any courtrooms in it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Yeah, it's in addition to it. The only reason I posted it here was they've also had talk of creating a master plan for the "campus". A couple of the articles talked about planned future growth. I posted it a while back. There were some massing/diagrams showing the building sizes.

Sooo...the county is building a 7 story office building for criminal justice AND a possible new courthouse south of Republic Square. OK I was confused too. Thanks for the added info.

KevinFromTexas · #**190** Posted **Sep 2, 2013, 8:23 PM**

The Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale is 20 floors. Here's the thread on it. If you Google the name you'll also find renderings of it.
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ort+lauderdale

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/l...ice-flo/nZhSx/

Quote:

Posted: 12:00 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 1, 2013
STATESMAN IN-DEPTH: TRAVIS COUNTY COURTHOUSE
As Travis County works toward courthouse price, Florida project may be a guide

By Farzad Mashhood
American-Statesman Staff

As Travis County commissioners embark on plans for a $340 million civil courthouse — hoping to avoid the embarrassing cost overruns, delays and lawsuits that plagued their last major downtown construction project — officials are looking toward the beaches of Florida for guidance.

Two miles from the Atlantic Ocean, officials in Broward County, Fla. are working on a new courthouse, too. The south Florida courthouse will be five stories taller and contain twice as many courtrooms as Travis County officials plan to build, but at a cost of $298 per square foot — half the price Travis County officials project.

AusTxDevelopment · #**191** Posted **Sep 3, 2013, 3:14 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

The Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale is 20 floors. Here's the thread on it. If you Google the name you'll also find renderings of it.
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ort+lauderdale

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/l...ice-flo/nZhSx/

Here is the rendering from the Statesman news article Kevin mentions, for those of you who are thwarted by the paywall.

Statesman.com: "This is a rendering of the new 20-story, 741,000 square foot Broward County Courthouse in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. The $213 million project is scheduled for completion in 2015."

ATXboom · #**192** Posted **Sep 3, 2013, 5:48 PM**

Broward's footprint appears to be much larger than what's available in Austin. Hopefully Travis takes note of the number of court rooms Broward is planning, as well as their unfinished space for future expansion.

I'd prefer they look at Franklin County (Columbus) court house as an example.

http://www.emporis.com/building/fran...olumbus-oh-usa

KevinFromTexas · #**193** Posted **Sep 3, 2013, 5:53 PM**

By the way, that courthouse in Columbus is the tallest county courthouse in the US. It's 464 feet tall.

GoldenBoot · #**194** Posted **Sep 3, 2013, 8:37 PM**

Trust me...when the county commissioners nixed the idea of a P3 for the site, the hope of a really cool ("world-class," as E&Y suggested) building died. The commissioners are deathly afraid of a bond election failure. Thus, they are going to "bomb-down" any design and make this 530,000SF building an basic "eye-sore..." simply because it is cheaper and, in their minds, easier to get bond approval. Hell, I'd allow my taxes to go up a bit to build something of which all Travis County citizens would be proud.

KevinFromTexas · #**195** Posted **Oct 29, 2013, 1:14 PM**

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/ne...nager-for.html

Quote:

Oct 28, 2013, 12:14pm CDT
Travis County finalizes manager for downtown courthouse project

Robert Grattan
Staff Writer-
Austin Business Journal

URS Corp. may lock up a contract with Travis County to advise the Commissioners Court and represent the county's interests in the development of the new downtown Austin civil and family courthouse, according to Travis County documents.

KevinFromTexas · #**196** Posted **Mar 20, 2014, 5:26 PM**

Travis County Courthouse project advisory group takes shape

NYC2ATX · #**197** Posted **Mar 21, 2014, 6:47 AM**

I remain cautiously optimistic about this project. Even if a public-private arrangement were kept as an option, I feel that most (if not all) development companies would be scared away by the inordinate amount of design limitations and security requirements involved in constructing a new government building of any type. I fear little about the design, but I'm concerned more so about the height. I'll be grateful if only to get something that crests above the AMLI building in front (behind?) and therefore has some sort of skyline impact. It also might be cool if they went for a design that played off cues from the new US courthouse across the street. That could create a real "civic center" feeling around Republic Square.

We shall see.

KevinFromTexas · #**198** Posted **Mar 21, 2014, 7:35 PM**

Oh, it'll be tall for sure. 17 floors would make it about 300 feet at least. Courthouses have really high slab to slab heights. There's a 16-story one in San Diego that is 333 feet tall. They even built it right up to the street:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=188139

Jdawgboy · #**199** Posted **Mar 22, 2014, 10:15 PM**

I still don't like the idea of such a prominent and highly coveted lot to be used in such a way. If there was a private partnership with a mixed use tower, I would be more inclined to feel better, but with a limited number of lots with no height restrictions, I would rather see a 800 footer at least on this site.

hereinaustin · #**200** Posted **Mar 23, 2014, 5:57 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

I still don't like the idea of such a prominent and highly coveted lot to be used in such a way. If there was a private partnership with a mixed use tower, I would be more inclined to feel better, but with a limited number of lots with no height restrictions, I would rather see a 800 footer at least on this site.

Agreed. A big waste.