Mueller Redevelopment Update Thread

[Komeht]

Originally Posted by tildahat

Which is why the original plan is disappointing. Too many McMansion sized houses, too few mid-rises, too few row houses. I wouldn't have minded it being 100% row houses - lots of urban neighborhoods are.

It might also have helped with The Gap issue, my single biggest complaint with Mueller. But I don't want to start another debate on that.

What's nice about Mueller is having a range of housing types. Having all one type (rowhomes) would make this place much more one dimensional.

That being said there are a lot of row homes, from affordable to upscale, live/work shop homes, there are apartment buildings, condo units, 4 and 6 plex houses, granny flats, garden court homes with shared green space) and single family detached homes.
9
I would say the diversity of housing stock and range of prices (from subsidized "affordable" under 200K to over a 1M is as good or better than any other central Auatin. And that's just now, with it only being a quarter built. Imagine once its complete.

[nixcity]

Agreed tildahat and wwmv, and are those strip malls they are building in the pictures there??

[tildahat]

Originally Posted by Komeht

What's nice about Mueller is having a range of housing types. Having all one type (rowhomes) would make this place much more one dimensional.

That being said there are a lot of row homes, from affordable to upscale, live/work shop homes, there are apartment buildings, condo units, 4 and 6 plex houses, granny flats, garden court homes with shared green space) and single family detached homes.
9
I would say the diversity of housing stock and range of prices (from subsidized "affordable" under 200K to over a 1M is as good or better than any other central Auatin. And that's just now, with it only being a quarter built. Imagine once its complete.

Yeah, I wouldn't actually propose 100% rowhouses as my first choice, but I would have liked fewer single family, and of those more in the 1200-1800 sf range and fewer in the 1800+. And the diversity will always ring hollow to me so long as there's a gaping hole between the affordable and market through which most Austin families with kids fall....

I swear, I really want to like Mueller, I really do.

[Komeht]

Looks like Berkman is getting close - it will be interesting to see how this impacts traffic - especially going into town on Manor and MLK. . .



And on Barbara Jorden Blvd.




Retail and restaurants on Berkman

[Syndic]

Cool. I somehow missed this update. I drove through there today and was shocked to see Barbara Jordan almost finished. That's going to become a straight shot from I-35 to the H-E-B, so things are going to get pretty busy over there pretty soon.

They started construction on the next phase of houses north of Robert Browning.

Also, it looks like they've started construction of the town center in earnest. There were multiple cranes out there and one of those big drill machines. Lots of machinery. I guess they weren't bluffing. They're really getting after it at Mueller right now.

[Syndic]

Drove through Mueller hoping that Berkman and Barbara Jordan would be open. Alas, there were not. But it's looking like it's not far off now. I didn't have time to take too many pictures, but there is a lot of stuff going on at Mueller right now. It's just a beehive of activity with different projects everywhere you look. I'll try to remember where all the active projects are and map it out below. Here are the pictures that I did take.

Here's how ACM is going:









The HEB is nearly finished. As you can see, the signage is up. It looks like they're just paving the parking lot right now. They probably have a lot of stuff still going on inside, but I give it less than a month before it's open.



The other shopping center buildings (which I didn't get pictures of, unfortunately) seem to have turnout pretty nice.

Here are the locations of where I saw ongoing construction:



1. Hotel and other shopping center building.
2. New project. Not sure what this is.
3. Same goes for this one.
4. HEB and shopping center.
5. Market district building. This one looks huge. Has maybe 20-30 pillars.
6. Austin Children's Museum.
7. Ongoing housing construction. These houses are popping up in a blink of an eye.
8. New project. No idea what this one is. Would like to find out.

[Global]

1. Hotel and other shopping center building.
2. New project. Not sure what this is.
3. Same goes for this one.
4. HEB and shopping center.
5. Market district building. This one looks huge. Has maybe 20-30 pillars.
6. Austin Children's Museum.
7. Ongoing housing construction. These houses are popping up in a blink of an eye.
8. New project. No idea what this one is. Would like to find out.[/QUOTE]


#2 This project is the new AISD Performing Arts Center, however it is located to the left of where you outlined it, at the intersection of Mueller Blvd & Barbara Jordan & 51st
#3 Not aware of anything going on this lot
#5 Market District Parking Garage
#8 Next section of Mueller homes to start construction this summer

[Syndic]

Originally Posted by Global

#2 This project is the new AISD Performing Arts Center, however it is located to the left of where you outlined it, at the intersection of Mueller Blvd & Barbara Jordan & 51st
#3 Not aware of anything going on this lot
#5 Market District Parking Garage
#8 Next section of Mueller homes to start construction this summer

Ah, okay. I might have misremembered some of the locations. Thanks for the info.

[Komeht]

Originally Posted by Syndic

Ah, okay. I might have misremembered some of the locations. Thanks for the info.

#5 is the town center parking garage. Market district is by the HEB - #4

[Global]

Originally Posted by Komeht

#5 is the town center parking garage. Market district is by the HEB - #4

Right you are...slip of the tongue. From what I've been told, the Town Center Garage will eventually be completely enveloped with retail/residential buildings, as the garage is not being built to the edge of the lot.

[Syndic]

Yeah, whoops. I mixed up "town center" and "market district". I knew the difference. I didn't know that was a parking garage, but I knew that it was a "town center" building. Seems like the retail there is going to be pretty lonely for a while, though, as they haven't started on any of the other town center buildings yet. I guess the parking garage is mostly being built now to accommodate the children's museum clientele.

[AusTxDevelopment]

Originally Posted by Global

Right you are...slip of the tongue. From what I've been told, the Town Center Garage will eventually be completely enveloped with retail/residential buildings, as the garage is not being built to the edge of the lot.

Mueller's master plan does not allow them to have blank garage walls facing any of the streets. They either have to create the Texas Donut - interior garages with apartments/retail/office surrounding the outside, or they have to 'landscape' them by creating planters for hanging/crawling plants or put up trellises for plants to climb. They can also put art on them.

http://www.muelleraustin.com/the-plan/design-guidelines

Also, here is the May 2013 master plan map that shows where everything is going and what it will be:

http://www.muelleraustin.com/uploads...-13-13_sec.pdf

[Komeht]

Originally Posted by Global

Right you are...slip of the tongue. From what I've been told, the Town Center Garage will eventually be completely enveloped with retail/residential buildings, as the garage is not being built to the edge of the lot.

Yup - the Texas doughnut

[Syndic]

I didn't take any photos, but I drove through Mueller earlier and Barbara Jordan and Berkman are open now. It was great. The whole shopping center around that HEB looks like it might end up looking pretty nice (for suburbia).

But I was right about one thing on the map I posted before. Work may not have started there yet, but the entire area north of Barbara Jordan between Mueller Blvd and Berkman is fenced off.

[audiomuse]

14 June 2013

[Jdawgboy]

Originally Posted by audiomuse

14 June 2013

This is how all of Muller should have been built at the least but I would have a few 10 to 15 floor buildings mixed in.

While there are some good things, overall I am disappointed in how Mueller is turning out. It could have been a real urban and dense area but as others have pointed out, its more suburbia than anything else.

[H2O]

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

This is how all of Muller should have been built at the least but I would have a few 10 to 15 floor buildings mixed in.

While there are some good things, overall I am disappointed in how Mueller is turning out. It could have been a real urban and dense area but as others have pointed out, its more suburbia than anything else.

Mueller is over 700 acres. If the entire project was built at that density, it would take about 100 years of market absorption to complete. Nobody would make any money, and the majority of the property would remain fallow for decades. What purpose would that serve?

The only way to ensure it could be completed in a reasonable time would be to downzone the rest of the city so that South Lamar (for instance) would remain low density automobile oriented sprawl instead of densifying and taking away market absorption from Mueller.

You have to remember, at the time Mueller was planned, there were 0 VMU buildings in Austin. Even the Triangle was still ink on paper. Nobody knew for certain that the market would accept the product. Early developments were taking a huge risk. It is easy to say in hindsight what should have been done.

[Komeht]

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

This is how all of Muller should have been built at the least but I would have a few 10 to 15 floor buildings mixed in.

While there are some good things, overall I am disappointed in how Mueller is turning out. It could have been a real urban and dense area but as others have pointed out, its more suburbia than anything else.

It will be the densest neighborhood outside the CBD when complete. Mueller is a 15-20 buildout on year 6.

[nixcity]

It will be the densest neighborhood outside the CBD when complete.

Even more than West Campus? Or maybe even eventually Riverside seems like it could surpass it. Are there any buildings in the town center over 6 floors?

[Komeht]

Originally Posted by nixcity

Even more than West Campus? Or maybe even eventually Riverside seems like it could surpass it. Are there any buildings in the town center over 6 floors?

Town center isn't built yet, the first parking structure is just going in as well as the Children's Museum. I'm sure someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand the charter allows buildings up to 100 feet (perhaps more with Urban Rail). Whether they actually end up being that high is a different matter.

The northwest retail shopping district is quite suburban which large big box stores set behind parking lots. And I'm sure a lot of us agree that this was a mistake.

That being said, it's really incorrect to call the rest of Mueller suburban. It will be denser and more urban and mixed use with a greater diversity of housing options than any of the other urban residential neighborhoods in Austin.

A lot of the criticism seems to stem from a basic misunderstanding perpetuated by some that Mueller was somehow supposed to be complete in the first few years. Even without the financial crisis this would have been unlikely (and frankly not very good). Good places take time to evolve. All urban planners know you have to think in 10, 20 year increments. Things are set in motion and then with sensible planning, financing, time and luck a wonderful place develops.

South Lamar isn't going to be a great urban Blvd overnight either - but in 20 years I fully expect it will be well on the way to becoming so. It took 50 years to turn South Lamar into a nasty depressing corridor of strip malls, adult books stores, car garages and big box stores and it will take at least 25 years to undue that damage.

Likewise not too long ago Mueller was an airport. It will take time to develop into an urban village within the city of Austin. But the plan is quite good even if details can be disagreed with here and there. Calling it suburban is just not accurate in any sense of the word.