A view of the tower’s ground floor exterior details — we’re looking at the southern face of the building here. Image: Stratus / SCB
Barring a few notable exceptions, in terms of development action and overall height the region of Austin directly west of the Capitol could be considered “the downtown that time forgot” — despite being very much within the boundaries of downtown, convenient zoning limitations and other preservation-related protections keep this area pretty low to the ground, which is part of the reason why the area’s dominated by historic old mansions converted to lawyer’s offices.
Still, more and more we’re seeing plans carefully venture into this zone, with details emerging this week for a 31-floor, 357-foot residential tower planned at 416 West 12th Street by local developers Stratus Properties and Chicago-based architecture firm SCB — we know Stratus from its development of the W Hotel and Residences, and SCB is the architecture firm of choice for the several projects around here by residential developers the Hanover Company. It almost feels odd for SCB to work for another developer in this case, since the tower proposed here looks kinda similar to its Hanover Republic Square and Brazos Street projects, at least in its basic form.
A preliminary rendering of the tower’s basic massing, with its features and height identified — not sure what we’re commemorating in those spaces, but maybe it’s for the old building? Image: Stratus / SCB
Shown off for the first time earlier this week in preliminary renderings at a meeting of the Architectural Review Committee of the City of Austin’s Historic Landmark Commission, the project would rise at the northeast corner of West 12th and San Antonio Streets, a nearly half-acre site currently occupied by the headquarters of the Delta Kappa Gamma Society, a women’s professional organization with a long history in Texas — and yes, the building itself is also historic.
The main entrance of the DKG headquarters currently occupying the proposed tower site. Image: Wikimedia Commons
Dating back to 1955 and rocking the International Style of midcentury architecture from well-represented local firm Kuehne, Brooks, and Barr, the DKG HQ was listed on the National Register of Historic Places back in 2012. (It’s also directly next door to the historic A. O. Watson House at 402 West 12th Street, currently home to — you guessed it — a law firm.) But as we know, that doesn’t stop the structure from being torn down, so we’ll just have to see what the Historic Landmark Commission says about the whole thing — the results of the meeting aren’t public quite yet, though they should be soon, and this was just a preliminary review anyway.
An aerial view of the tower site and its surroundings — the DKG HQ is the “U” shaped building in the center. Image: Bing Maps
Since the building isn’t actually in a historic district, there’s only so much the Commission can beef with here, but the site will require a rezoning case to reach its desired height just the same. Whether or not the proposal has any fans at the Commission, what’s mostly interesting about this project is that sheer size — at 357 feet, it’s second only to the 432-foot tower planned at 14th and Guadalupe Streets in terms of height in the area, taller than old-timers like Westgate Tower (261 feet) and other new plans like the Linden condos at 17th and Guadalupe Streets (333 feet).
A preliminary site plan showing ground-level details including the interior layout and square footages for the tower planned at the corner of 12th and San Antonio Streets. Image: Stratus / SCB
Since this district is so lacking in towers at the moment, a project with this height is really going to stand out more than it would anywhere else in downtown — that prominence, combined with the fact that during a global pandemic we’ll take any tower announcements we can get, will keep us following this emerging development even more closely than usual. West Downtown is the new thing, we’ve been saying!
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