Quote:
Originally Posted by rriojas71
I totally agree with you here. I love Austin and I'm glad to see they are getting some attention to their skyline, but I visited recently on a trip home to FW to see my family and I don't like what they are doing DT.
I know I'm going to get slammed on here, but I am just commenting on my impressions about my recent visit. I was initially excited about because it had been a while since I have visited Austin and I have not been since all the new skyscraper growth. I like a lot of the buildings and the effect on the skyline, but I was actually disappointed with what I saw at ground level where one can truly measure the vibrancy of it's central core.
All the new buildings seem too far apart and the areas surrounding them felt lackluster and sterile. There are too many parking lots and all they do to an urban environment is create a void between each development. It's like going to an art exhibit where each of the works of art is shown in a different venue. Just when I was starting to get excited I was interrupted by 2 or 3 parking lots. It didn't feel urban, but instead felt like a residential/office park near DT.
I really hope they start to focus more on infill in between to create more of a neighborhood feel. More small corner stores and independent grocers and drugstores to discourage people from having to drive for their goods & services. Less car centric, although that can be difficult in TX cities, but Austin has the where-with-all and the intelligent people to pull it off.
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He was talking about Mueller which is not downtown.
But as for downtown I have to wonder where you went downtown to not be able to find anywhere with out blocks of vibrancy without parking lots? Second street has one parking lot. Granted it is a huge one that takes up a whole block, but that entire block is being built into a huge 1000 room hotel this summer. But still that is one parking lot for a total of 7 block long. Congress is the main street in Austin and it has the one parking lot I mentioned above and then tiny parts of two others (no more than 70 or 80 feet). And it is 10 blocks long. 6th Street has no parking lots until you get on the west side of downtown. That is 10 blocks with zero parking lots. 5th Street also has like 10 or 12 blocks with no parking lots.
Edit: correction with only one tiny (80x80 foot) parking lot. That is like 80 feet out of over near 4,000 feet of street. Brazos has like 11 blocks with only the one big one I mentioned above, and the tiny one I mentioned on 5th. With the exception of 2nd (due to the convention center) all those streets I just mentioned there that is over a full kilometer each (over 3,200 feet), and after this summer that big parking lot I mentioned for Congress, 2nd and Brazos is no longer going to be there.
In most cities I would totally agree that big surface parking lots are bad. But not in the case of Austin as it is right now. Austin has tons of vibrant areas downtown. It is an extremely lucky city to have such a vibrant downtown. How you missed those parts I am not sure, but they are there. HOWEVER, one of the problems Austin has is the skyline is highly restricted due to such things and view corridors. Views of the Capitol building are protected to many parts all around Austin outside downtown. So tall buildings can't be build in many areas of DT. That does two things. One it lowers the value of what those lots that have those restrictions as development potential is limited. But most importantly it makes the lots that don't have those restrictions MUCH more important. There are two lots like that in DT. One Travis County owns and is building a new courthouse. The other one is the over 1,000 room hotel on the lot I mentioned in the previous paragraph (on Congress, 2nd and Brazos.)
Given that Austin has so much great vibrancy as it is downtown I do not think that the smaller areas that don't have the restrictions and have large development potential should just have infill thrown in for the sake of infill. I think they should sit until the full developmental potential can be filled with a kick ass project. Just trowing some half-assed infill in there is not needed. At least not in Austin, because our downtown is not hurting for vibrancy in the least.