Another condo project announced, this one south of the river at S Lamar and Riverside Drive. It will be a mid-rise 6-story complex. Here is the article from this morning's Austin American-Statesman (10/27):
http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/10/27downtown.html
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Condo project to include Paggi House
Developers plan 6-story building to wrap around historic restaurant.
Site Plan:
http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/business/102705paggihouse.pdf
By Shonda Novak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, October 27, 2005
One of Austin's oldest buildings will become part of a $30 million condominium and retail project on South Lamar Boulevard, just south of Town Lake.
Austin Park Village will include more than 100 condominiums, an outdoor pool, courtyards and 9,000 square feet of street-level retail on a stretch of Lamar now lined mostly with fast-food restaurants.
The Paggi House restaurant, housed in a 160-year-old building, will be incorporated into the project. But a Wendy's and a small office building will be torn down.
The project will be the first major urban residential development on the south side of the river, said Bobby Nail, Austin partner for the developer, Dallas-based CLB Partners LLC.
His company plans to start construction early next year on the project. The first residents could move in in mid-2007.
A six-story condominium building will occupy much of the 2.5-acre site currently owned by the Powell family estate.
A second phase, with more condos and shops, could begin in several years on land now home to Taco Cabana at the southeast corner of Riverside Drive and South Lamar. Taco Cabana has a lease through 2012, Nail said.
He said no zoning changes are required for the project.
The city's Historic Landmark Commission already has given its approval to raze the office building, which sits in a city-designated historic zone surrounding the Paggi House.
The office building was built by the late Jim Pfluger, the architect for whom the nearby Pfluger pedestrian bridge was named, and Pfluger's son, Brad, continues to use it as his office.
The Pflugers were instrumental in restoring the Paggi House in the 1970s.
Nail said the Paggi House and its history are "a huge part of this project."
The small house was built in the 1840s, and later served as an inn. Michael Paggi bought it in 1884. The Pflugers were instrumental in restoring the house in the 1970s. It's been a restaurant since 1980.
Nail said the Austin Park Village site is an ideal location, surrounded by the Town Lake hike-and-bike trail to the north and a city-owned nine-hole golf course to the east.
Austin Park Village will be among more than a dozen new downtown or near-downtown projects in the pipeline. Like many of those projects, condos at Austin Park Village will be at the high-cost end, from the upper $200,000s for an 850-square-foot unit to about $550,000 for 1,650 square feet.
CLB is the developer of the Austin City Lofts, the upscale condominium project on West Fifth Street. The 82 units, priced from the upper $200,000s to $1.5 million, were all sold within 18 months after it opened in April 2004. CLB also is developing five major mixed-use projects with more than 400 residential units in and around downtown San Diego.
[email protected]; 445-3856
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EDIT - this article was just posted by the Austin Business Journal online edition
http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2005/10/24/daily33.html?jst=b_ln_hl
$50M condo project slated for S. Lamar
Mary Alice Kaspar
Austin Business Journal Staff
The developer of the Austin City Lofts is planning a $50 million transformation of a prime site just south of downtown Austin.
CLB Partners Ltd. will build 110 condo units coupled with 9,000 square feet of retail on a 2.5-acre site on South Lamar Boulevard. Units will range from 800 to 1,650 square feet in size and be priced from the upper $200,000s to the mid-$500,000s.
The six-story project will feature condos on top of ground-floor retail and underground parking -- along with a courtyard area highlighted by a pool, hot tub, fire pit, fireplace and outdoor cooking area.
The site "has everything," says Bobby Nail, a partner in the Austin office of CLB Partners. "It has hike-and-bike trails across the street, golf across the street and the best restaurant next to it ... and unobstructed views of downtown."
CLB has named the project Austin Park Village, playing off its location near Town Lake and other amenities.
Construction is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2006 and expected to take 14 months to complete. Austin-based Rhode:Hurt is the project's architect.
Principal Brett Rhode says the design will be "subdued, but elegant," making use of natural stone and high-quality materials.
Willy Scott and the Pfluger family, who had a long-term ground lease on the land, will own and manage the retail portion of the project. Scott will be seeking small "boutique" retailers.
The land that CLB Partners is set to close on in January includes the historic Paggi House restaurant, which occupies one of the oldest homes in Travis County. CLB wants to go to great lengths to preserve and enhance what surrounds Paggi House.
"I think it all works together," says Rick Engel, owner of Paggi House and president of Engel Management Service Inc.
Engel says he and the developer plan to work together closely as the project is developed. Neighbors have been enthusiastic about the upcoming changes, he says, and are glad a height variance won't be necessary.
Meanwhile, a mustard-yellow office building and Wendy's restaurant now on the land will be torn down. A second phase, not yet planned, might be built where a Taco Cabana now stands.
That Wendy's location is the second-oldest in Austin. Local franchisee Pisces Food LP says it was contemplating the future of that store when CLB shared its plans. Now, it will play a small, unspecified role in the project and would like to find an alternate location in the area.
"It's really an opportunity for a higher and better use for this piece of property with all that's going on downtown," says Dave Near, owner of Pisces Food.
About 900 residential units have been added in downtown Austin in the past five years, Austin Mayor Will Wynn says. Another 240 units are under construction, while a whopping 2,000 units are in various stages of planning.
But Nail isn't worried about competition or overbuilding.
"When I moved here in 1999, 22 projects were being talked about. Austin City Lofts was the only one built," Nail says. "There are a lot of projects being talked about right now. They're very hard to execute. The good thing about CLB is we have a history of executing and doing projects people love."
CLB, which has offices in Dallas and Solana Beach, Calif., built the $42 million, 82-unit Austin City Lofts. It also might build about 100 condos alongside Gables Residential Trust on Cesar Chavez Street.
"We at CLB think Austin, Texas, is one of the best places to be in the country," Nail says. "And we're going to continue to invest millions of dollars."
[email protected] | (512) 494-2519
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