Quote:
Originally Posted by drummer
Is this any sort of sign that the area around the airport may become more of an entertainment location in the future? For instance, if we were to get a pro sports team, while many folks here would love the venue to be downtown for obvious reasons, would the powers that be put it out there? It'd be like Arlington or Frisco for DFW, though obviously a lot more open land, haha. Just wondering.
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I like your thinking about this, and I like that location due to the confluence of 130, 71, 183, and Riverside. With future expansion of some or all of these roads, it will always be an easy location to access, and it's an area that lacks the environmental sensitivity of most areas to the west of 35. It's already home to COTA, and the Hyatt resort and conference center. Placing a concentration of big features like this in that area, along with the airport, would make it more feasible to add a gondola transport system between there and downtown. Obviously this would be more of a novelty than a real practical solution to traffic problems, but it's a novelty that I, and many other Austinites and visitors, would eagerly embrace and utilize.
Austin is a very smart location for a surf park like this. Since it's only allocating 12 of 160 acres to the main wave pool, I would certainly hope that they include non-surfing water features so that there's a local alternative to the rather abysmal, windswept, sun-stroke-inducing concrete slab known as Hawaiian Falls Pflugerville.
Edit: HOLY MOLY, I just read the Statesman article, this thing is gonna be huge! Wow, it could be a real game-changer in terms of shaping Austin's image as a vacation destination. I'm very excited about this and will be among the first to pass through its gates when it opens. I hope they'll have an area for body-surfing, cuz I'm a So Cal and I grew up riding waves, but never gave board surfing a real shot.
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