64 Months Seems Like Long Enough to Build the Tallest Tower in Texas, Right?

Image: LPC / Kairoi / KPF / HKS / WGI

When someone says they’re going to build the tallest tower in the state right in your backyard, it’s okay to get a little thirsty for updates. And brother, we are thirsty.

We appreciate the architects at KPF for accurately modeling the Four Seasons Residences next door. Some of those other towers look a little hinky. Image: LPC / Kairoi / KPF / HKS / WGI

To us, even small steps forward are worth celebrating on the mixed-use office, hotel, and residential “supertall” planned to rise a reported 73 floors (and somewhere between 1,022 feet and 1,034 feet depending on who you ask) near Waller Creek at 98 Red River Street by the team of Lincoln Property Company and Kairoi Residential, with help from New York-based architects Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, Dallas design firm HKS, Inc., civil engineers at WGI, and locals TBG Partners and Nudge Design respectively handling landscape architecture and urban design.

Image: LPC / Kairoi / KPF / HKS / WGI

We’ve happily covered everything from glass tests to banners on fences, because no matter how minor, they all represent progress towards the goal of yoinking the “Tallest in Texas” crown from those chumps in Houston and returning it to its rightful place in the state capital. Think of it as a 21st century continuation of the Archives War, a record-setting middle finger raised to the ghost of Sam Houston in the name of Angelina Eberly — or, you know, just a really impressively tall building. 

Photo by James Rambin

With that in mind, we’re pretty pumped to see another major sign of progress on this building appear at the edge of the Rainey Street District — a fence now surrounds the full 3.3-acre development tract on the west side of Red River Street, with signs indicating the Hike-and-Bike Trail access point at the end of Willow Street at the south edge of the future tower site will be closed for an estimated 64 months to allow for the tower’s construction. (You’ll notice the map also indicates the construction site of the Travis project next door — we’re still waiting to see when that thing kicks off.)

On the left, a close-up of the map showing the trail closure and surrounding construction sites on Red River Street on the western edge of the Rainey Street District. On the right, an overhead rendering showing the finished 98 Red River tower and its surroundings. (They didn’t bother to model the Travis project on that one.) Images: LPC / Kairoi / KPF / HKS / WGI

The streetscape of the finished tower will reconnect pedestrian access to the trail in this area, including a new bridge over Waller Creek, but what’s really impressive is that number. 64 months is approximately five and one-third years, meaning the earliest this project could deliver is sometime in early 2027, assuming it gets started soon.

The digger don’t lie! Photo by James Rambin

Representatives of Lincoln and Kairoi have declined to comment on the tower’s development timeline for the time being, possibly because they’re tired of us asking, but based on various city filings along with recent crane permits — not to mention what appears to be light site prep already taking place here, with an excavator already tooling around — the absolute soonest this thing could kick off is early 2022, but whenever it does, we plan to be across the street wearing one of those beer helmets. Has anyone ever tailgated a construction site? Considering that possible development timeline of five-plus years mentioned on the sign, you’ll really have to pace yourself.