AUSTIN | 405 Colorado Street | 356 FEET | 25 FLOORS | Completed

[The ATX]

Originally Posted by The North One

This looks awful...

Is Austin at all worried about it's future building nothing but these giant parking fortress podiums everywhere? These are permanent structures, it's not likely they will ever be demolished and replaced with something better. It's really ruining the urban potential of the city, forever.

Yeah, we are worried about becoming a failed city - much like Detroit.

[davidberko]

Originally Posted by The North One

This looks awful...

Is Austin at all worried about it's future building nothing but these giant parking fortress podiums everywhere? These are permanent structures, it's not likely they will ever be demolished and replaced with something better. It's really ruining the urban potential of the city, forever.

I KIND of agree? But you gotta have parking. Austin might eventually get some great mass transit options but people will always have personal cars. I do food delivery downtown sometimes and the anxiety is always, what about parking? I'm GRATEFUL for big ugly parking garages and parking podiums. Makes life easier.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by The ATX

Yeah, we are worried about becoming a failed city - much like Detroit.

lol you're a mod doing ad hominem attacks? wow

[davidberko]

Originally Posted by The ATX

Yeah, we are worried about becoming a failed city - much like Detroit.

Ouch! As someone born and raised in the D that stung....😂
I don't think any major U.S. cities will have a downfall quite like Detroit. It's a sad story. I'll always root for its comeback though!

[urbancore]

Originally Posted by The North One

lol you're the administrator doing ad hominem attacks? Wow.

Yeah, but he’s our administrator.

We thought we lost him for a minute, grateful to have him back.

Move along.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by urbancore

Yeah, but he’s our administrator.

We thought we lost him for a minute, grateful to have him back.

Move along.

Yeah I got him confused, thankfully he's not. So at least I have somebody to complain to on this site. lol

[The North One]

Originally Posted by davidberko

Ouch! As someone born and raised in the D that stung....😂
I don't think any major U.S. cities will have a downfall quite like Detroit. It's a sad story. I'll always root for its comeback though!

I mean it's cool. Austin will never have a downtown one tenth as great as Detroit if he wants to go there. And of all the skyscrapers under construction only one will have a parking podium.

Damn this is just some serious bullshit lol, I honestly wanted to talk about what Austin was doing in the direction of better planning but whatever.

[davidberko]

Originally Posted by The North One

I mean it's cool. Austin will never have a downtown one tenth as great as Detroit if he wants to go there. And of all the skyscrapers under construction only one will have a parking podium.

Damn this is just some serious bullshit lol, I honestly wanted to talk about what Austin was doing in the direction of better planning but whatever.

Detroit has a great downtown indeed! Hard to beat its architecture. I haven't been to Detroit since 2015 back when I lived in dearborn heights. I miss it.

Austin has some good architecture too but yeah. The parking podiums. They seem to make up a third or more of the skyscrapers being built. You don't see that in detroit's buildings. Either Ilitch surface parking or gigantic garages everywhere lol. I think it may just be a new trend. Most of Austin's downtown as you see it today isn't more than a couple decades old. So many shiny new buildings.

[The North One]

Yeah that's what concerns me. Parking lots eventually get developed, parking garages get demolished all the time. When was the last time a parking podium tower was razed and replaced with a better development? I don't think that has ever happened. When large buildings get built with parking on the bottom it stays there.

Really hope Austin city council is at least paying attention. Does the city have huge parking requirements? Detroit is going through a massive zoning overhaul to reduce or eliminate parking minimums. Every single time I peak into an Austin thread I see a parking garage castle at the bottom. Austinites deserve better.

[the Genral]

Guys, guys, guys. That's not a parking podium, that's a giant TV stand, you know, for the giant old fashion tube TV, some call it a molar.
To explain the parking podiums in Austin the way I understand it,,,if you guys are still looking at this thread, there are several reasons. #1) Austin is car centric and there is a need for parking. #2) Austin is a second tier city despite its 11th largest US city designation. That means that developers here are not willing to, nor do they need to dig deeper in their wallets (or into the ground) to pay for tier one type buildings. Building parking podiums is far cheaper than under ground. That's what they do here, and although we don't own a patent on parking podiums, it sure seems that way as I don't recall seeing them too often elsewhere. At least this podium is not the worst looking in the city. 3rd and Shoal holds that distinction, but there are others. What really sucks is when you combine a parking podium with cheap cladding. They can be done discreetly. I wonder if everyone knows that our BoA on Congress Ave is about 1/3 above ground parking. And I agree, Austin does deserve better.

[KevinFromTexas]

This is still in the ugly duckingly phase. I'll reserve judgement until it's done.

[the Genral]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

This is still in the ugly duckingly phase. I'll reserve judgement until it's done.

Oh I like this one. I was refering to parking podiums in general. I think this will be one of the more interesting building dt. The other more interesting building u/c also has a massive parking podium. Parking podiums....it's what we do.

[Urbannizer]

I’m more so turned off by the backside of this thing. Hoping tower 5C breaks ground in January.

[H2O]

Originally Posted by The North One

Yeah that's what concerns me. Parking lots eventually get developed, parking garages get demolished all the time. When was the last time a parking podium tower was razed and replaced with a better development? I don't think that has ever happened. When large buildings get built with parking on the bottom it stays there.

Really hope Austin city council is at least paying attention. Does the city have huge parking requirements? Detroit is going through a massive zoning overhaul to reduce or eliminate parking minimums. Every single time I peak into an Austin thread I see a parking garage castle at the bottom. Austinites deserve better.

Austin doesn't have any minimum parking requirements Downtown. It is the market that is driving the over parking. Many of the newer buildings have both underground and above ground parking. The underground parking is not just more expensive, it is often infeasible to go deeper due to ground water and geology.

What Austin City Council could do is institute a parking MAXIMUM Downtown. They could also change the calculation of FAR to include above ground parking, so developers would have to pay larger density bonus fees. Both actions could have the unintended consequence of making development in places like the Domain more financially attractive than Downtown, which could lead to disinvestment Downtown.

[freerover]

Originally Posted by H2O

Austin doesn't have any minimum parking requirements Downtown. It is the market that is driving the over parking. Many of the newer buildings have both underground and above ground parking. The underground parking is not just more expensive, it is often infeasible to go deeper due to ground water and geology.

What Austin City Council could do is institute a parking MAXIMUM Downtown. They could also change the calculation of FAR to include above ground parking, so developers would have to pay larger density bonus fees. Both actions could have the unintended consequence of making development in places like the Domain more financially attractive than Downtown, which could lead to disinvestment Downtown.

We could also pass prop A which would decrease pressure on developers to provide so much parking. Putting in a parking max might just mean projects don't get funded.

[lonewolf]

almost all urban parking garages built since 2015 are made to be convertible. cre thinks smart evs could drastically devalue need for this space within 2 decades.

i'm still bullish on this one. i will say this is the ugliest set of photos it has had in a while lol..just a bad hair day


and yes detroit doesn't have these buildings in its core (or does to a much small extent). that's because detroit had a population of 465k in 1910, before the mass production of the automobile. that means they had to design a city grid where 465k people could get across town and back in a day on their feet and do their housework. this is called building to the "human scale" Austins city grid was designed after the model t assembly line.

[clayton_rogue]

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[Echostatic]

This turned out really nice. I'm excited to get up to that 14th floor Sky Lobby once this is all over.

[the Genral]

Originally Posted by Echostatic

This turned out really nice. I'm excited to get up to that 14th floor Sky Lobby once this is all over.

Yep. The renderings never showed how tiny massive / little giant this was going to be or how impressive it would look from street level. The other positive is the color of the podium cladding, a much needed splash of color. The different angles of the glass adding another unique element. I usually say an addition 10 floors would have been better, in this case, I would have settled for 5 additional floors. Alas, the 14th floor Sky Lobby is another amenity I will never venture to along with countless others downtown. I did however go to the observation deck of the UT Tower back in the 80s at 2am with my brother who was a UT cop at the time. In fact, I did a walk along with him when he was on duty and got to go all over campus in the wee hours and even sat and farted on Fred Akers desk chair, no disrespect intended, it slipped. How many of you can say you did that??!

[Urbannizer]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/calvindouglas/50556151517