West Fifth to get 8-story office building

JAM · #1 Posted **Jul 18, 2008, 1:37 PM**

West Fifth to get 8-story office building
Building would be first large office space in downtown area since 2001.
By Shonda Novak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, July 18, 2008

Construction is scheduled to begin today on the first new office building in the downtown area since the Frost Bank Tower broke ground in 2001.

The eight-story building is planned for the western end of West Fifth Street, which is becoming a newly revitalized gateway to downtown. Retail space and more than 300 apartments are under construction on the stretch of West Fifth between MoPac and Lamar boulevards that for years was lined mostly with car lots and warehouses.

Ninety percent of the 115,000 square feet in the new building has been leased. It will be the new address for several companies owned by Austin entrepreneur Steve Hicks, including Capstar Investment Partners; digital music company DMX Inc.; Harden Health Care and the affiliated Girling Health Care; and Andrew Harper Inc., an upscale travel agency.

Compass Bank is leasing 20,000 square feet, which will include a ground-floor branch.

Developers said Capstar at Compass Plaza should be ready for tenants by September 2009.

The developers are Austin-based Sage Land Co. and Capital City Partners.

Sage principals Pete Lamy and Bill Burrow have been buying up land at that end of West Fifth Street since the early 1990s.

Sage owns the Hartland Plaza office building across the street and recently completed a 340-space parking garage, with ground-floor retail, west of that building. A pedestrian bridge over West Fifth that now leads to a parking lot will connect the older and new projects.

The project, designed by Austin-based Susman Tisdale Gayle, is expected to incorporate green building features. The developers plan to seek certification under the national LEED program, which rates buildings on factors such as energy efficiency, the use of recycled materials and landscaping with native plants.

Robert Hicks, president of Capstar Partners LLC, said Capstar explored several options downtown but decided that "a new building with an emphasis on sustainability would best suit our needs."

Hicks said other selling points included the project's proximity to downtown and Central Austin, less traffic congestion than downtown, and access to and views of Lady Bird Lake.

The Hicks companies will occupy 82,000 square feet in the new building.

The Austin office market has softened in recent months, as the region's job growth has fallen to 2.2 percent — half the rate it was a year ago.

But Bart Metheney, a principal with Aquila Commercial, which is handling leasing for the new building, said the project "sends a resounding message to the market" that growing companies still are willing to commit to substantial leases.

Three of the Hicks companies are moving from One American Center on Congress Avenue. Harden Healthcare, which recently bought Girling, will move some employees from several offices in North Austin, Robert Hicks said.

snovak@statesman.com; 445-3856

Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/conten...18westend.html

M1EK · #2 Posted **Jul 18, 2008, 2:08 PM**

This story and the ABJ story about an architect firm moving out to the east side should further confirm what I've been telling y'all: companies are loath to move to downtown proper because there is no more capacity to move people in/out (no, not even with commuter rail - although the architecture firm apparently believes the latter).

sakyle04 · #3 Posted **Jul 18, 2008, 3:50 PM**

how does this impact one american center - the majority of hicks' 82,000 was in there...or so the article implied.

M1EK's comment is beginning to resonate with me. As the urban experience can increasingly be had outside of the core - and outside of the core's negatives - more companies will be moving close to but not completely into downtown. could that be called "urban sprawl"?

NormalgeNyus · #4 Posted **Jul 18, 2008, 4:39 PM**

maybe M1EK can explain this to me alittle bit better. but how is getting into our downtown so bad already? our downtown area is huge and very spread out compared to other downtowns and we have way less people then other downtowns. so how is the access getting into downtown affecting it in a negative way already. I just dont get it. the only thing i can think of is all the small streets downtown and one way streets downtown.

M1EK · #5 Posted **Jul 18, 2008, 4:49 PM**

Insufficient capacity on I-35 and Mopac plus bad light at Lamar. This new office building avoids the latter but not the former; the E 7th building avoids both.

Note that for most suburbanites, both new buildings are 'downtown' in terms of prestige and SOME of the experience but again, avoid at least some of the access problems.

And yes, for a suburbanite CEO, access into downtown is already past the point of unacceptable. It would be one thing if we had an alternate access via light rail (commuter rail, even if I'm wrong and people love the shuttle buses, maxes out at a joke 1500-2000 people/day).

Jdawgboy · #6 Posted **Jul 18, 2008, 7:39 PM**

Im shocked that OWANA has not stomped this out completely.

Honestly overall this is still a good thing for the central core of the city. It shows that we are densifying around downtown as well as in downtown. Also lets be honest here, in about 20 years or so downtown will have outgrown itself if not sooner than that. Eventually this area will slowly be included into the downtown area.

Also hadnt relized it till just now that this is my 1,000 post Woohoo.

M1EK · #7 Posted **Jul 18, 2008, 7:43 PM**

Vertical mixed use on 5th/6th was explicitly asked for in the OWANA plan (although I can't remember anything quite that tall being enthusiastically supported). This is why Morrison was able to claim she hadn't opposed a few things around OWANA.

KevinFromTexas · #8 Posted **Jul 18, 2008, 9:14 PM**

I would imagine this building would be about the same height as the Whole Foods HQ. Around 120 feet or so.

EDIT: I've sent them an email about the height. Let's see if they respond.

Mopacs · #9 Posted **Jul 20, 2008, 9:25 PM**

Here's some additional renderings

DougRockstead · #10 Posted **Jul 21, 2008, 8:05 PM**

I have to disagree with M1EK...

I think this building says the complete opposite. We have a tenant moving from North Austin to Downtown.. and I know this isn't exactly downtown, but compared to the metro area it's pretty darn close. As for the rest of the tenants, they are companies owned by the guy building the building. Why wouldn't he want to headquarter his offices out of a building he owns? that would be like building a house and choosing to live in an apartment 10 blocks away.

As far as avoiding the traffic concerns you mention, the only thing they are avoiding is the congestion on I-35 at best. If you are trying to get to that office you will still have to navigate the cumbersome lights at 6th/5th and lamar, and you still have to fight the Mopac traffic.

For this story to prove your point it would have been better if all tenants moved away from donwtown completely to someplace like Oak Hill, Cedar Park or Pflugerville... for example...

now don't get me wrong, I wish we did have a great light rail system here, but I wouldn't use this as an arguement for light rail... It's too weak.

Doug

arbeiter · #11 Posted **Jul 21, 2008, 8:18 PM**

Wow, two of my family members work for DMX in Seattle - maybe I should tell them to transfer! DMX picks nice offices, usually, their office here is in a 100-year-old warehouse rehab type place.

M1EK · #12 Posted **Jul 21, 2008, 8:19 PM**

Doug, the point is that all new office construction since '01 has been outside the traditional core of downtown - and some old offices have become vacant and/or turned to other uses.

Yes, 5th near Mopac IS a lot easier to get to (from Mopac) than is 5th/Congress. Speaking from experience here.

KevinFromTexas · #13 Posted **Jul 22, 2008, 11:19 PM**

I got an email back from the developers and a few more renderings. The building will be 100 feet tall. So that's not very tall, not even considered a high rise by most standards. It'll be the same height as AMLI Downtown, or 10 feet taller than the CSC/Silicon Labs buildings. Not too shockingly tall, even for that area.