A very fuzzy view of the planned tower’s full scale, with some relevant figures listed if you’re in a squinting mood. Image: The Hanover Company / Solomon Cordwell Buenz
The 44-story Hanover Republic Square apartment tower is seemingly days away from breaking ground at the corner of West Fifth and Lavaca Streets in downtown Austin, but its developer and namesake the Hanover Company already has another project up its sleeve — a 41-story residential tower planned for a 0.4-acre tract at 205 Brazos Street, also known as the southeast corner of East Third and Brazos Streets.
A current view of the southeastern corner of East Third and Brazos Streets, currently occupied by an older masonry structure which will be integrated into the new building’s ground floor.
A briefing from representatives of the developers and architects Solomon Cordwell Buenz at a meeting of the City of Austin’s Historic Landmark Commission earlier this week gave us our first look at the tower, which will reconstruct a portion of the existing masonry structure standing at the corner of East Third and Brazos Streets into its podium — and though the older building isn’t officially historic, the Hanover Company’s working with the Historic Landmark Commission’s Certificate of Appropriateness Review Committee anyway, gathering input on how to best maintain (and arguably expand) elements of the original structure’s character in the context of the new tower’s ground-level streetscape.
A site plan of the tower’s ground floor, showing its layout and the context of its surroundings. Image: The Hanover Company / Solomon Cordwell Buenz
The developers will apply for a demolition permit for the existing building at 205 Brazos Street in January — though elements of the original structure are being integrated into the new tower, the old building must be torn down and reconstructed for this whole thing to work. That means we’ll probably see clearer renderings of the project when it comes back to the Commission for action, but for now you’ve got to deal with some low-res screengrabs:
A view of the early design of the Hanover tower’s parking podium and ground floor retail presence, which reconstructs some elements of the original masonry building at the site in modern context — or adds “texture,” as the architects say. Image: The Hanover Company / Solomon Cordwell Buenz
The current plan, which is obviously extremely preliminary and absolutely subject to change, provides a height of 498 feet for the tower, with 9 floors of above-ground parking in its podium with 32 floors containing 306 residential units above that — and those units are almost certainly apartments, given the rest of Hanover’s portfolio.
A shade structure and other preserved elements of the existing building integrated into the new tower at the corner of East Third and Brazos Streets. Image: The Hanover Company / Solomon Cordwell Buenz
The project’s rounded out on the ground floor with roughly 4,500 square feet of retail space, likely to be used for a restaurant. The slightly more set back location of the old building’s reconstructed walls behind a modern glass facade creates a sort of courtyard between the two, with the original structure’s rebuilt masonry visible through glass facade elements. The effect is visible in the images below, one from the inside and one looking in from outside:
The view from inside the space between old wall and new wall, ideal for a little cafe type operation as you can see here. Image: The Hanover Company / Solomon Cordwell Buenz
Looking through the glass front of the Hanover tower project with the reconstructed masonry of the property’s existing structure visible behind it. Image: The Hanover Company / Solomon Cordwell Buenz
The comparison shots below, their perspective even more pulled back, give us a good idea of how old and new structural elements get along on the tower’s podium for the sake of increased texture — in addition to masonry, the panels seen screening the parking podium below are made of metal, and some rustic-looking metal at that.
Image: The Hanover Company / Solomon Cordwell Buenz
We’ll likely get a better view of the proposed building in the New Year, but what we’ve seen so far seems pretty nice already. It’s unclear when Hanover hopes to actually build this thing, considering they’ve already got another tower across town to babysit — but then again, it wouldn’t be the first time somebody built two things at once.
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