Mueller Area Development Updates

[Jdawgboy]

That's the other issue I have is the shear amount of parking. Goodness, I guess they don't expect many people who live in Mueller to walk or use mass transportation. Do they really need a parking spot for every person within a mile radius? I'm probably exaggerating but so much for encouraging alternative modes of transportation.

The red line may not go through Mueller but it is nearby and people that live along Airport should be able to have easy access to it.

[SecretAgentMan]

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

That's the other issue I have is the shear amount of parking. Goodness, I guess they don't expect many people who live in Mueller to walk or use mass transportation. Do they really need a parking spot for every person within a mile radius? I'm probably exaggerating but so much for encouraging alternative modes of transportation.

The red line may not go through Mueller but it is nearby and people that live along Airport should be able to have easy access to it.

The parking garages are not for Mueller residents. They are for the throngs of visitors who come for the farmer's market, Lake Park, Thinkery and in the future, Aldrich Street. The ones incorporated into office and apartment buildings are no larger than they are everywhere else in the city.

The red line does not serve Mueller at all. By the time it takes to get to Highland or MLK station, you can get Downtown on one of the buses that already serve Mueller directly.

A direct rail connection would not just be serving Mueller residents. It would also serve the 13,000 workers and customers getting to and from their jobs at the hospital and offices, as well as the retail / entertainment functions of Aldrich Street.

[brando]

Originally Posted by SecretAgentMan

The parking garages are not for Mueller residents. They are for the throngs of visitors who come for the farmer's market, Lake Park, Thinkery and in the future, Aldrich Street. The ones incorporated into office and apartment buildings are no larger than they are everywhere else in the city.

The red line does not serve Mueller at all. By the time it takes to get to Highland or MLK station, you can get Downtown on one of the buses that already serve Mueller directly.

A direct rail connection would not just be serving Mueller residents. It would also serve the 13,000 workers and customers getting to and from their jobs at the hospital and offices, as well as the retail / entertainment functions of Aldrich Street.

Great Post. The last proposed light rail route to Muller was a great option considering the expansion of residential and business in that area. The problem is that people need to see development before they will buy into it. I don't think there is a timeline of Aldrich street. That is the biggest question mark to me. SOMEONE was telling me that they should announce the movie theatre soon. If it's the Alamo then they should be ready to make an announcement now that South Lamar is wrapped. At least the stop at Hancock will be the future spur to Muller.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by SecretAgentMan

The ones incorporated into office and apartment buildings are no larger than they are everywhere else in the city.

Just wanted to see that again. Think about it.

[SecretAgentMan]

Originally Posted by M1EK

Just wanted to see that again. Think about it.

I'm not sure what you are insinuating.

Even Downtown has lots of parking. People who live and work Downtown may not need to drive to work on a daily basis, but most still have cars parked in their residential garages. A mixed-use environment with good transit service can reduce parking demand by about 20%, but there is still a lot of parking.

A mixed-use environment mostly reduces internal automobile trips. Good transit connections are needed to reduce external trips. If rail is extended to Mueller, it might be possible to eliminate, or at least reduce in size, the planned second public parking garage. It might also be possible to increase the office density without adding significantly more parking. But there will still be a lot of parking. This is Austin, Texas. If developers do not provide adequate parking, they are losing competitive edge with other developments. Even if they wanted to boldly go where none have gone before, they would only make it next to impossible to obtain financing.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by SecretAgentMan

I'm not sure what you are insinuating.

What does it say when our supposed new urban showcase feels like it has to provide 100% of the parking of the typical Austin development? Is it truly an indictment of Austin, given that some other developments are able to proceed with somewhat less than 100% of typical parking, or is an indictment of Mueller's plan and implementation?

[Syndic]

It's realism. Some people can't seem to grasp that Austin is a suburban city. Always has been. You can't offer people no place to park. Who the hell would live in a place where they can't park their car? What are they supposed to do with their car? Mueller is an island. It's on the other side of the highway. It's really not that close to downtown, in terms of walking or biking. You need a car, living out there. Car2Go doesn't exist there yet (I don't think) and the rail line isn't going there. People have to be able to get around. I don't think it's that big of a deal. What's damaging about cars are the energy source they run on. And, as I say this, it is an Ozone Action Day in Austin.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by Syndic

It's realism. Some people can't seem to grasp that Austin is a suburban city. Always has been. You can't offer people no place to park. Who the hell would live in a place where they can't park their car? What are they supposed to do with their car? Mueller is an island. It's on the other side of the highway. It's really not that close to downtown, in terms of walking or biking. You need a car, living out there. Car2Go doesn't exist there yet (I don't think) and the rail line isn't going there. People have to be able to get around. I don't think it's that big of a deal. What's damaging about cars are the energy source they run on. And, as I say this, it is an Ozone Action Day in Austin.

I think you are missing a key point. Let me emphasize it.

What does it say when our supposed new urban showcase feels like it has to provide 100% of the parking of the typical Austin development? Is it truly an indictment of Austin, given that some other developments are able to proceed with somewhat less than 100% of typical parking, or is an indictment of Mueller's plan and implementation?

[Syndic]

Originally Posted by M1EK

I think you are missing a key point. Let me emphasize it.

What does it say when our supposed new urban showcase feels like it has to provide 100% of the parking of the typical Austin development? Is it truly an indictment of Austin, given that some other developments are able to proceed with somewhat less than 100% of typical parking, or is an indictment of Mueller's plan and implementation?

I'm pretty sure I answered you. The answer was that it's actually suburban, not urban. It's the fault of people erroneously labeling the development. It incorporates some principles of urbanism but it's on an island, so it still needs 100% parking considering people living there have jobs and lives and can't just stay in the neighborhood all the time. Apparently, it's also evidence that people don't like having to ride the bus.

[SecretAgentMan]

Originally Posted by Syndic

I'm pretty sure I answered you. The answer was that it's actually suburban, not urban. It's the fault of people erroneously labeling the development. It incorporates some principles of urbanism but it's on an island, so it still needs 100% parking considering people living there have jobs and lives and can't just stay in the neighborhood all the time. Apparently, it's also evidence that people don't like having to ride the bus.

I think your 'island' is a little backwards. No part of a modern metropolis can truly be an 'island'. The epitome of suburban sprawl, a gated purely residential subdivision which is segregated from employment and commercial services is perhaps the closest to an 'island'. But from a transportation perspective, it is anything but an island, because everybody has to leave to work or shop. Such a neighborhood has little need for parking outside of residences. Street parking is more than adequate for the occasional visitor.

An extremely isolated, remote small town might be the closest thing to an 'island', but in the global economy even such isolated places tend to export workers and import goods.

Mueller was intended to be a 'complete community' from the outset. A place where it is possible to live, work and play without leaving the community on a daily basis. The Town Center was originally intended to primarily serve the neighborhood, and be anchored by a grocery store. The sense of it being just another neighborhood, no matter how well designed, changed as soon as the Children's Hospital decided to built at Mueller.

At build-out, Mueller is expected to have 13,000 residences and 13,000 jobs. That is probably a better jobs / housing balance than just about anywhere in Austin. It is actually a little employment heavy because children don't work and not all households are dual income. With a good jobs / housing balance and a full complement of commercial services needed for daily life, it has strong potential for a complete live, work, play community. People who work at Mueller may choose to live there, but many will choose to live there even though they work elsewhere. And with a predominance of dual incomes in our society, it is rare for both partners in a relationship to be able to work in the same part of town. So the reality is that there is potential to live and work in Mueller, but most people will do one or the other.

Also, it is important to realize that much of Mueller serves more than Mueller itself. HEB serves a good piece of East Austin, with many customers driving several miles, hence the abundant parking like every other large grocery store in Austin. Lake Park has a similar customer base. The Thinkery and the AISD PAC are City-wide facilities, as will be the rest of the Town Center. The Children's Hospital actually serves more than a dozen counties of Central Texas, far beyond the Austin MSA.

So it is hardly comparable to an island. The only comparable regionally serving developments in Austin are Downtown (including the Capitol Complex and UT), the Domain and ACC Highland.

[H2O]

I just don't get the animosity towards Mueller. Yes, it is a neighborhood, but it is anything but suburban. It might not be the hippest neighborhood for singles to live in, but it seems really great for families. But it's also more than an neighborhood. How many other neighborhoods in Austin contain a children's hospital, a children's museum, a school district's performing arts center and a UT research campus?

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by H2O

I just don't get the animosity towards Mueller. Yes, it is a neighborhood, but it is anything but suburban. It might not be the hippest neighborhood for singles to live in, but it seems really great for families. But it's also more than an neighborhood. How many other neighborhoods in Austin contain a children's hospital, a children's museum, a school district's performing arts center and a UT research campus?

The city gave up a lot of potential revenue when it decided not to just sell that tract to the highest bidder (and zone it for whatever that bidder wanted). Instead, we were assured that playing along with the surrounding neighborhoods would yield a new urban showcase. And, no, the taxes they get from what Mueller developed into don't make up for that despite what Mueller shills will tell you. Had we just turned it over to a standard developer, we'd be making every bit as much as we do now in property taxes, and we would have gotten a nice chunk of money up front to boot (maybe could have kept some libraries open, or some pools, for many years).

Instead we got a nice suburb which cost us a lot (opportunity cost) and ruins the brand of urbanism. Every time somebody like me proposes some infill as an urbanist in one of the older Austin neighborhoods, they can point to Mueller and claim that "urban development doesn't reduce the need for parking! Everybody will drive!". Everybody does, in Mueller! People drive to that big HEB. I've driven around it a dozen times now and not seen one lousy person walking there, as I predicted when it was planned, under construction, and opened.

Mueller is a disaster for the brand of urbanism. Only those with a personal stake in pretending otherwise (like SecretAgentMan) will claim it's a success story. It's not just me. Try talking to some of the folks in AURA. Or Chris Bradford (Austin Contrarian).

From July 2013:

Mueller is a very pleasant -- and popular -- development. There's a lot that's been done well there, particularly the open space and the architecture. But it's become increasingly difficult to call it "urbanist," New or otherwise. In too many ways, it is a standard suburban product with New Urbanist trim.

(Don't rely on his "Mueller" tag; it only captures a couple of his posts). Some more here:

http://www.austincontrarian.com/aust...ealistic-.html

Although touted as an urban infill project, Mueller frankly is more suburban than urban and is located among a bunch of other neighborhoods that are also more suburban than urban. It should be no surprise, then, when it draws suburban-style development.

Or all the way back in 2007 (I had expressed concerns along these lines when I was on the UTC back in the 2000-2005 era): http://austinzoning.typepad.com/aust...ueller_be.html

This is my main concern about Mueller. I'm beginning to worry that many of the single-family homeowners will still be a car-drive away from the nearest retail, even after Mueller is built out.

Perhaps this anectdote might help. At the beginning of this summer, I was trying to take the kids swimming. I live about eight blocks from Shipe. Was having a bad arthritis day so I drove them to the pool (as you'll see, this was a blessing in disguise).

Shipe was closed due to maintenance issues (the city doesn't have enough money to adequately maintain many of our older pools; Shipe's been having trouble for years and has been getting band-aids, very slowly, to keep it limping along). Oops. Thought about going to Ramsey - our next closest pool, but it was closed due to the lifeguard issue (which despite what the city says is fundamentally a money issue too - raise the wages a bit and more kids would go through their absurd hoops earlier in the year and be ready to go on time).

Drove to Bartholomew, which had opened a week earlier, and requires payment, but we'd been there opening weekend and enjoyed it - and they take credit cards! Line out of the door 20 people deep (which means 20 people had to leave before we'd maybe get in). Aha, I thought; I'll drive into Mueller. My wife's swum there a couple of times with the kids.

I get to their pool, go up to the counter, and they say they only take cash. Great. At the same time our city can't maintain our own pools or staff them, I am told Mueller is great because I can use their pool, but their pool, nothing special, typical neighborhood pool - it requires that you pay unless you're a resident - cash only, and I didn't have cash.

Ended up going to the Eastside Y (we have a membership) rather than going and finding an ATM. Total time elapsed driving with kids that almost didn't get to swim at all: one hour.

Now let's consider the counterfactual where we had just zoned the whole tract medium density (even light industrial, which some had proposed!) and sold it off. City has more money in their budget, so Shipe is better maintained (maybe even rebuilt!) and is open. Boom. Done. Or, Ramsey is staffed because the city could add a buck to lifeguard wages and the kids were incented to get their apps in earlier. Boom. Done.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by SecretAgentMan

Also, it is important to realize that much of Mueller serves more than Mueller itself. HEB serves a good piece of East Austin, with many customers driving several miles, hence the abundant parking like every other large grocery store in Austin. Lake Park has a similar customer base. The Thinkery and the AISD PAC are City-wide facilities, as will be the rest of the Town Center. The Children's Hospital actually serves more than a dozen counties of Central Texas, far beyond the Austin MSA.

If Mueller was actually urban, the fact that most of the locals wouldn't drive on internal trips would mean that even these large, regional, attractors would not need to provide 100% of the parking that they would provide if they were in the suburbs. Nobody is asking for 0; just something substantively less than every bit as many spaces as they'd provide in Leander. You should have to defend the provision of vast quantities of surface and garage parking, at basically full suburban levels.

[Tech House]

Originally Posted by M1EK

At the same time our city can't maintain our own pools or staff them, I am told Mueller is great because I can use their pool, but their pool, nothing special, typical neighborhood pool - it requires that you pay unless you're a resident - cash only, and I didn't have cash.

I hope I'm not going too off-topic by responding to the pool issue alone but... I just returned from a very extensive car trip around the northwest and I made a habit of swimming in every city I visited. Nearly every city of every size above about 10K residents has a pool and ALL of them charge admission. In addition, nearly all of them far surpass Austin's pools on every measure of quality, with the possible exception of ambiance. Most city pools feature a large slide or two, diving boards, and splash pads. And I'm even talking about small towns in Idaho where it's only hot enough to have the pools open for a couple months!

So I think the first thing Austin needs to do with respect to pools is to charge admission so that they can be properly staffed and maintained. And then it would be nice to see some creativity to provide better amenities at said pools. But the "never change anything" sentiment in Austin is suffocating, so I'm pretty sure that these ideas would be violently opposed by most pool regulars. I hope I'm wrong about that.

[Slappy]

Originally Posted by Tech House

So I think the first thing Austin needs to do with respect to pools is to charge admission so that they can be properly staffed and maintained.

Agreed. It's nice to have these free pools everywhere, but they are always the first thing the city cuts from the budget.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by Slappy

Agreed. It's nice to have these free pools everywhere, but they are always the first thing the city cuts from the budget.

All of our pools that are non-trivial do charge money. "neighborhood pools" are only open for about two months and are free. The ones the guy two comments upstream talks about in the northwest correspond to our pay pools (Bartholomew, Northwest, Deep Eddy, Barton Springs).

[H2O]

Originally Posted by M1EK

The city gave up a lot of potential revenue when it decided not to just sell that tract to the highest bidder (and zone it for whatever that bidder wanted). Instead, we were assured that playing along with the surrounding neighborhoods would yield a new urban showcase. And, no, the taxes they get from what Mueller developed into don't make up for that despite what Mueller shills will tell you. Had we just turned it over to a standard developer, we'd be making every bit as much as we do now in property taxes, and we would have gotten a nice chunk of money up front to boot (maybe could have kept some libraries open, or some pools, for many years).

Instead we got a nice suburb which cost us a lot (opportunity cost) and ruins the brand of urbanism. Every time somebody like me proposes some infill as an urbanist in one of the older Austin neighborhoods, they can point to Mueller and claim that "urban development doesn't reduce the need for parking! Everybody will drive!". Everybody does, in Mueller! People drive to that big HEB. I've driven around it a dozen times now and not seen one lousy person walking there, as I predicted when it was planned, under construction, and opened.

Mueller is a disaster for the brand of urbanism. Only those with a personal stake in pretending otherwise (like SecretAgentMan) will claim it's a success story. It's not just me. Try talking to some of the folks in AURA. Or Chris Bradford (Austin Contrarian).

From July 2013:



(Don't rely on his "Mueller" tag; it only captures a couple of his posts). Some more here:

http://www.austincontrarian.com/aust...ealistic-.html



Or all the way back in 2007 (I had expressed concerns along these lines when I was on the UTC back in the 2000-2005 era): http://austinzoning.typepad.com/aust...ueller_be.html



Perhaps this anectdote might help. At the beginning of this summer, I was trying to take the kids swimming. I live about eight blocks from Shipe. Was having a bad arthritis day so I drove them to the pool (as you'll see, this was a blessing in disguise).

Shipe was closed due to maintenance issues (the city doesn't have enough money to adequately maintain many of our older pools; Shipe's been having trouble for years and has been getting band-aids, very slowly, to keep it limping along). Oops. Thought about going to Ramsey - our next closest pool, but it was closed due to the lifeguard issue (which despite what the city says is fundamentally a money issue too - raise the wages a bit and more kids would go through their absurd hoops earlier in the year and be ready to go on time).

Drove to Bartholomew, which had opened a week earlier, and requires payment, but we'd been there opening weekend and enjoyed it - and they take credit cards! Line out of the door 20 people deep (which means 20 people had to leave before we'd maybe get in). Aha, I thought; I'll drive into Mueller. My wife's swum there a couple of times with the kids.

I get to their pool, go up to the counter, and they say they only take cash. Great. At the same time our city can't maintain our own pools or staff them, I am told Mueller is great because I can use their pool, but their pool, nothing special, typical neighborhood pool - it requires that you pay unless you're a resident - cash only, and I didn't have cash.

Ended up going to the Eastside Y (we have a membership) rather than going and finding an ATM. Total time elapsed driving with kids that almost didn't get to swim at all: one hour.

Now let's consider the counterfactual where we had just zoned the whole tract medium density (even light industrial, which some had proposed!) and sold it off. City has more money in their budget, so Shipe is better maintained (maybe even rebuilt!) and is open. Boom. Done. Or, Ramsey is staffed because the city could add a buck to lifeguard wages and the kids were incented to get their apps in earlier. Boom. Done.

Wow. Just. Wow!

I'm sorry you had such a crappy day trying to go for a swim, but it hardly seems rational to blame a whole neighborhood for it.

[SecretAgentMan]

Originally Posted by M1EK

If Mueller was actually urban, the fact that most of the locals wouldn't drive on internal trips would mean that even these large, regional, attractors would not need to provide 100% of the parking that they would provide if they were in the suburbs. Nobody is asking for 0; just something substantively less than every bit as many spaces as they'd provide in Leander. You should have to defend the provision of vast quantities of surface and garage parking, at basically full suburban levels.

Austin's Land Development Code regulates minimum parking requirements. There are generally, no parking maximums. Even most Downtown developments provide far in excess of the minimum requirements. Regulations aside, it is the market that dictates the parking ratios. Texas development lenders are very conservative about parking. It can be extremely difficult to get debt financing if the 'market' perceives there to be a lack of parking. Additionally, anchor tenants like HEB demand ample parking. That is precisely why they moved the grocery out of the town center. Attracting a major grocer there would have required too much parking. By moving the grocery to the market district, the town center can be much more dense and pedestrian friendly.

[IluvATX]

It would be nice to see some Mueller photos on here...

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by H2O

Wow. Just. Wow!

I'm sorry you had such a crappy day trying to go for a swim, but it hardly seems rational to blame a whole neighborhood for it.

You really didn't get it. Mueller cost the city money over the "sell it off" approach, and we're being told we should be grateful we can pay a fee to use their pools when ours are closed due to, at its root, budgetary problems.