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San Antonio developer Lynd to build tallest building … in Austin
By Richard WebnerAugust 18, 2017 Updated: August 18, 2017 3:10pm
The tower’s construction is expected to start in nine months; the offices will take about two years to build, while the residences will be finished in four years.
The tower’s construction is expected to start in nine months; the offices will take about two years to build, while the residences will be finished in four years.
A San Antonio residential developer is about to tackle its biggest project yet: an 850-foot, 62-story skyscraper with 345 luxury apartments and half a million square feet of office space.
But it will be in Austin.
Lynd Development Partners, a firm based on the Northwest Side known for building luxury apartment complexes around The Rim, is teaming up with Lincoln Property Co. of Dallas on the tower, which is expected to be Austin’s tallest building by more than 150 feet, said Mike Lynd Jr., the firm’s president and CEO. It will be at the corner of Sixth and Guadalupe streets, an area of Austin’s downtown that is crowded with construction cranes for new skyscrapers.
“We didn’t aspire to build the tallest building in Austin,” Lynd said. “We look at projects economically. I don’t look at projects to make my ego feel good.”
The tower’s construction is expected to start in nine months; the offices will take about two years to build, while the residences will be finished in four years, Lynd said. The development partners are under contract to buy the 1.6-acre property, which is currently the site of an extended-stay hotel.
The partners plan to wait until development plans are complete to line up financing, Lynd said. He’s not sure yet what the tower’s cost will be.
The tower, which was first reported by the Austin American-Statesman, will take advantage of the booming real estate market in Austin, especially in its downtown. Austin’s educated workforce, its reputation as a hip city for Millennials and efforts by the city’s business leaders to market it nationwide are attracting companies and residents, Lynd said. Companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Homeaway have expanded their workforces in the city in the last year, according to the Austin Chamber of Commerce.
Another advantage for Austin’s downtown is that the city has few residential submarkets, Lynd said — in other words, a large portion of its demand is centered downtown, while in San Antonio it is spread among hubs such as The Rim area, the Medical Center and the far West Side.
Lynd Development brought Lincoln Property Co. on board to handle the tower’s office component. The high cost of the property made it uneconomical to only develop it with residences, Lynd said. He declined to share what the purchase price will be, but the property was assessed at $19.5 million this year by the Travis Central Appraisal District.
The tower, which does not yet have a name, is roughly three times the size of any project that Lynd Development has tackled before, he said. The firm focused on building garden-style apartment complexes until 2010, when it constructed its first high-rise — the Env, a 28-story luxury apartment tower near Chicago’s riverfront. After the success of that project, it built high-rises in Austin, Denver and Miami.
The firm probably won’t pursue another project on the scale of the 62-story tower anytime soon, Lynd said. There are few properties in Austin where such a giant building could be constructed because of the limited size of the city’s downtown, its zoning laws and regulations preventing buildings from blocking views of the Texas State Capitol, he said.
He’s hopeful that he can one day build a high-rise in San Antonio, but the city lags behind Austin in demand for urban living. Another problem is that national investors don’t pay much attention to the Alamo City, he said.
“There are some high-rises that have been announced here. We just have to be careful about how much,” Lynd said. “The issue with San Antonio is … it just has a very limited amount of demand.”
Downtown San Antonio’s apartment market seems to be heating up, though. Two high-end apartment complexes, Cellars at Pearl and the Maverick, have been completed in the downtown area this year. A few other high-rise residential projects are in the works, including an $83 million, 21-story apartment tower across the street from City Hall.
“San Antonio is just a little bit behind Austin, but I think we are making tremendous projects here,” Lynd said. “It’s just a matter of time.”
RWebner@express-news.net
@rwebner
Richard Webner
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