AUSTIN | Modern Austin Residences | 658' | 56 FLOORS | U/C

[Armybrat]

Originally Posted by the Genral

fwiw, I really like this tower as presented. Secondly, I frequented Rainey when it was ONLY a neighborhood of pretty much old houses and not the wealthiest part of town at that. But to beat a dead horse, it was charming and inhabited by honest, hard working and retired people with kids and animals playing in the street. No bars, no highrises, just houses. After they were bought out, the bars came in, fairly recently. They took over vacated houses and renovated them into businesses that took off and became quite popular. They pretty much were time stamped knowing further development was eventually going to make most of them close down. But by then Rainey was a very popular destination, and people were upset with their demise. Phase 1, buy out the neighborhood, people sad to see it go, phase 2, develop further into high rise residents and hotels, and people were (are) sad to see the make shift bars and restaurants go. Phase 3, turning Rainey into a mostly tall and dense residential area, completely devoid of any resemblance of its former self. So if you are a bit older like myself, you might miss the old neighborhoods. If you came in during phase 2, you might be mourning the loss of a temporary entertainment district. And then again, if you are older like me, you might be celebrating the new Rainey because we're over the loss of the neighborhood because that was a long time ago. For the record, old Rainey is dead. It died when the people who lived there in those little old houses moved away. Long live the new Rainey.

Yep. When I lived just across the Colorado RiVer in the late 1950s, Rainey Street was just another typical old Austin neighborhood next to East Avenue.
The new Rainey is awesome, but a totally different stage in Austin’s history.

[papertowelroll]

Rainey was great for a time. So was the warehouse district. Red river was great before COVID, we'll see what happens there.

My take is that Austin has limited space in the CBD, so I can't really argue with urbanizing a place like Rainey. Hopefully post-COVID a new hip nightlife area will appear somewhere.

[zrx299]

Originally Posted by the Genral

The catalyst leading up to all of this is the inevitable increase of property values stemming from all the developments coming in to play. Even if they left some venues alone, small bars or restaurants, they would have succumbed to this and found it to be too expensive to do business there, like other parts of the city where the rents continue to rise and force businesses to move out of the downtown core. It always comes down to the survival of the richest. They call the shots. Their obvious vision is to cram as many people into Rainey as possible, even if it means squashing out every last endearing reason to visit Rainey. We'll just have to figure out somewhere else to go for fun.

This. This is the root of everything. There simply has to be a better way than taxing arbitrary paper valuations and forcing small businesses and renters out for reasons largely beyond their control. This has played out countless times across every city in the country.

Taxes should be transaction-based, not arbitrarily calculated and extorted by your municipal government because they can't balance a budget.

If someone wants to cash out and go a different way, so be it. Tax appropriately at that time. But governments need to stop trying to "boil a frog" and quit taxing unrealized paper wealth that doesn't exist until a transaction occurs.

[papertowelroll]

Originally Posted by zrx299

This. This is the root of everything. There simply has to be a better way than taxing arbitrary paper valuations and forcing small businesses and renters out for reasons largely beyond their control. This has played out countless times across every city in the country.

Taxes should be transaction-based, not arbitrarily calculated and extorted by your municipal government because they can't balance a budget.

If someone wants to cash out and go a different way, so be it. Tax appropriately at that time. But governments need to stop trying to "boil a frog" and quit taxing unrealized paper wealth that doesn't exist until a transaction occurs.

My counter argument to this is that the current taxation scheme encourages property to be used in productive ways.

Over here on the east side we one company that owns half of the property in the 12th street corridor. They have developed almost none of it. Downtown we had our friends at World Class Capital doing the same sort of strategy. Imagine how much of this crap we'd see if it weren't for property tax generally making this behavior prohibitively expensive?

I like that property taxes provide a "use it or lose it" aspect, even if there are some downsides as well.

[We vs us]

I mean, not to be obtuse, but . . . Rainey's becoming exactly what the city planned for it to become. While cool and interesting, the bars and restaurants were always going to be transitory, and these highrises are what everyone hoped the place would be.

I'd much rather get the city thinking about how to build/incentivize/protect the next Rainey than grouse about what's getting bulldozed today.

[WestAustinite]

Originally Posted by We vs us

I mean, not to be obtuse, but . . . Rainey's becoming exactly what the city planned for it to become. While cool and interesting, the bars and restaurants were always going to be transitory, and these highrises are what everyone hoped the place would be.

I'd much rather get the city thinking about how to build/incentivize/protect the next Rainey than grouse about what's getting bulldozed today.

I agree with this sentiment. It would be better for the city to identify a small area with commercial zoning where heights are limited (maybe part of east downtown within CVC or East 4th immediately east of I-35) and come up with an incentive plan for developers to encourage that specific use and create density.

[The ATX]

This project may have changed its name to 9092 Rainey. Here are the new renderings:








http://www.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=352191

[ATXboom]

oooohhhh... I like this. Sleek, well integrated garage. Cool roofline.

[We vs us]

Yeah I like this one, too. Great height, nice texture. I'm getting sick of that amenity notch halfway up that everything seems to have these days . . . but that's not this building's fault.

Kinda glad they decided not to embed the bungalow in the second floor. I don't think that would've aged well in the end.

I wonder how long Lustre Pearl and Alibi will last next door.

[Sigaven]

Oof, they really changed up the facade on this one. I really liked the old facade design, it was unique.

[the Genral]

Really like it. Love the flat top. As far as crowns go, go big or not at all. This looks great without one. Oh...I don't hate this notch.

[GoldenBoot]

Looks like they dropped the hotel component...

This is all residential now.

[StoOgE]

Originally Posted by GoldenBoot

Looks like they dropped the hotel component...

This is all residential now.

The number of hotels coming on line in the latest batch of proposals is pretty bonkers. Makes sense if you wanna hit quick-financing right now to hit housing and not other stuff.

[Syndic]

I'm a fan. I like how there's a bar at the bottom, not just a yoga studio or jamba juice. Preserves the culture of the neighborhood a bit. And I actually like the crown way better in this redesign.

The dark design elements seem to be catching on as the character of the area.

[myBrain]

Originally Posted by Syndic

The dark design elements seem to be catching on as the character of the area.

Yeah this is going to look great with 70 Rainey

[KevinFromTexas]

This design was shown in the elevations that The ATX posted in July - see his post in the previous page of this thread.

I like the darker color than the old design, but I thought the old one was more original. I guess this will complement 44 East nicely. They'll be nearly the same color and texture. It looks like they added some floors to the parking garage/podium. After I saved the new renderings The ATX posted, I was flipping through them in that folder. The podium jumped up as I clicked from the old design to the new one. The overall height of the tower didn't change.

And I guess this no longer contains the Container Bar, at least, I see no containers contained within it.

I still like the old design, though. I suppose I'll be happy with either one, but the old one was something different. This newer design is more of the same of 44 East, and the two Hanover towers.

Old design:

[drummer]

I like both versions; I'd be happy with either.

This area is becoming crazy dense. How does the density compare with West Campus these days? Or perhaps better to compare after these handful of towers are completed.

[Sigaven]

Van Zandt is gonna look so tiny after all these megaprojects around Rainey. Just a few years ago it stood out pretty prominently.

[KevinFromTexas]

This new version is also the slightly shorter one. Initially, the height we saw was 606 feet. The elevations for the old one showed it at 606 feet with 52 floors. The elevations for this newer design shows it at 602 feet with 51 floors.

[the Genral]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

This new version is also the slightly shorter one. Initially, the height we saw was 606 feet. The elevations for the old one showed it at 606 feet with 52 floors. The elevations for this newer design shows it at 602 feet with 51 floors.

So they only lost 4 feet and one floor...that one floor would have had mighty low ceilings.