AUSTIN | Projects & Construction III

[ATXboom]

Great news on the reduced parking requirement!!!

This will really lower dev costs and may catalyze an unprecedented building boom.

[nixcity]

Yes, thank Science for that, its about time.

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by Syndic

Whoa, whoa, guys. Slow down. I need time to process all of this (awesome) information.

So, it looks like that Hotel Zaza won't be very charming from the outside. It seems as though all of their hotels leave much to be desired in the looks department and it's hard to tell anything from that rendering. I hope we're not just getting another bland-looking hotel. We've already got plenty of those.

This other hotel is one of my favorites, though. I'm not a big fan of the step-back, but it's a cool-looking building and will include a live music venue, which is different. I can't read the article because I don't have a subscription. But what are the chances of the City Council approving this?

Yeah, my reaction to the Hotel ZaZa was just kind of meh. I do like the location, though. The 800-804 Hotel, though, is one of the nicer buildings planned in Austin. It really doesn't matter that the tower steps back from the street. What does matter is that the base is right up to the street, and it is. And I like the design. It reminds me of the Carnegie Tower in New York.

Anyway, both of these projects will do a lot of good for their neighborhoods. Both are going in kind of dead areas of downtown.

[N90]

Anyone else love living in such a booming state or is it just me?

[Syndic]

A booming country, really. This kind of stuff is happening in cities all over the country. Something to keep in mind this time of year.

[Dale]

Texas is booming moreso than the rest of the country, however.

[KevinFromTexas]

Someone's been selling steroids to Austin's hotel market.

Just think, this building set completely vacant in the early 90s. The hotel opened in 1924 as Austin's tallest hotel. It held that title until 1981.

http://www.statesman.com/news/busine...n-dolla/nSpT3/

Posted: 12:00 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012
Stephen F. Austin Hotel set for multimillion dollar upgrade

By Gary Dinges
American-Statesman Staff

As soon as Austin’s inaugural Formula One race zooms out of town, engines will rev on major renovations at one of downtown’s best known hotels.

The Stephen F. Austin Hotel, at 701 Congress Ave., is set for a head-to-toe makeover that will take about four months, said Danelle Awtrey, director of sales and marketing. It will remain open for business throughout the project.

The upgrades, expected to be completed by late February, will cost in excess of $1 million, Awtrey said, but the exact amount was not revealed.

[WestAustinite]

Did the Council vote to nix minimum parking requirements? I think this is a fabulous idea and will lead to more infill development downtown with tall skinny buildings. This is definitely true in two places I have visited: Sao Paulo and Tokyo . Both have extremely narrow 10+ story buildings with zero parking. That's not possible now. Take the building behind the Driskill as an example. It was for sale for years at $1.2 million. Problem is, the footprint is so small there is no way to provide parking. No that barrier is removed. Granted, the rent someone could get for a building with no parking is lower, but removing this requirement makes small sites near areas with large underused parking garages highly desirable. Also, using that site as an example, imagine the marketability of a tall narrow condo or apt building with NO parking but moe affordable than other options downtown with parking. I think they would be gobbled up. Do others agree?

[P3FE]

I hate to revisit this subject, but I want to be the one to draw attention to my folly rather than another. The power-lines around the courthouse did in fact come down today. Good taste prevails and sight lines remain clear.

[JoninATX]

It would have been an eyesore if they left the power lines up.

[ahealy]

Originally Posted by p3fe

i hate to revisit this subject, but i want to be the one to draw attention to my folly rather than another. The power-lines around the courthouse did in fact come down today. Good taste prevails and sight lines remain clear.

thank goodness

[WestAustinite]

Originally Posted by P3FE

I hate to revisit this subject, but I want to be the one to draw attention to my folly rather than another. The power-lines around the courthouse did in fact come down today. Good taste prevails and sight lines remain clear.

It's just too bad that the architect decided that surrounding the building on 3 sides with a 14 foot tall cement wall was a good idea. Reminds me of the 1980s when raw cement walls were in vogue as a design element. The north, south and west sides are complete dead zones now. I am sure the graffiti artists are excited however. The building is cool however....

[WestAustinite]

Most of the site has already been razed, except Tiniest Bar in Texas and house next to it.

[JoninATX]

They disassemble the crane at the Whitley apartment site. (3rd & Brazos) last Saturday.

[MichaelB]

Originally Posted by WestAustinite

It's just too bad that the architect decided that surrounding the building on 3 sides with a 14 foot tall cement wall was a good idea. Reminds me of the 1980s when raw cement walls were in vogue as a design element. The north, south and west sides are complete dead zones now. I am sure the graffiti artists are excited however. The building is cool however....

Not defending the look...just informing/reminding that Fed court house are heavily resticted in how they can be designed now. They have to have certainly amount of set backs and protection from street level. That is why you see all the metal pilons around the building and , actually the only positive by product is that the design used the set backs to plant trees/gardens.

[mars-man]

Regarding those ugly courthouse cement walls… I am disappointed they're not carrying the stone veneer down to the sidewalk level, where a great many of us will interface with this building daily. Like the Zach/Topfer finish-out, it reeks of budget cuts. Same with the lattice material surrounding the A/C and other mechanical stuff on the roof. Kudos for hiding that mess (are you watching, Larry Speck?) but big wet raspberries for not finishing the job and extending the stone to the very top!

[JoninATX]

I took some pictures today, some of the new apartment projects across the river and the new gables tower. I'll upload them some time later on.

[JoninATX]

Crane is going up at the Skyhouse site.

[KevinFromTexas]

^That's all good news up there. No fugly powerlines at the courthouse, 311 Bowie clearing its site, and SkyHouse getting its crane up.

This article quoted below is talking further about the possibility of parking requirements being removed from downtown development. Here is another article on it that came out last week.


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

Cars, downtown Austin don’t mix

Austin Business Journal by Colin Pope, Editor
Date: Monday, October 29, 2012, 6:36am CDT

Colin Pope
Editor- Austin Business Journal

That’s a headline I thought I’d never write. But the time has come for this steadfast Austinite, and consequently car-loving Texan, to concede that downtown Austin is phasing out our vehicles and doing a darn good job of it.

The nail in the coffin, in my opinion, was the story broken by City Hall reporter Robert Grattan recently. Austin city officials may decide soon to extremely taper — or eliminate altogether — parking requirements for downtown developers. That means when a skyscraper goes up it may only have a handful of parking spaces.

Like it or not it’s what urban market forces dictate, and Austin’s downtown is certainly weathering such forces. If there’s one thing I respect, it’s market forces. The market is pretty much always right.

[priller]

Originally Posted by JoninATX

Crane is going up at the Skyhouse site.

Yeah, I drove by this morning, the crane is up.