A street-level view of the Linden condos. Image: Reger Holdings / Rhode Partners
The Linden, a 28-floor downtown Austin condo tower planned in the previously rarely-developed northwestern corner of downtown Austin, is one step closer to becoming this area’s first major residential tower in many years. Along with a recent city permit for the installation of a 418-foot crane implying pending construction, a demolition application filed earlier this week is now in review for clearing the 1980s office structure atop the 0.3-acre site at 313 West 17th Street where the tower should soon break ground, on the southeast corner of West 17th and Guadalupe Streets:
A project of New York-based real estate investors Reger Holdings, the Linden will contain 117 condos and approximately 5,000 square feet of ground-level retail space in a 333-foot tower designed by local architects Rhode Partners, also behind Austin’s current tallest tower the Independent. Earlier this week, Reger received a $278.5 million loan from New York private equity firm Madison Realty Capital, intended to finance the construction of the developer’s local asset portfolio including the Linden tower and the 425-acre EastVillage mixed-use project planned in Northeast Austin.
Looking south at the Linden tower at the intersection of West 17th and Guadalupe Streets. Image: Reger Holdings / Rhode Partners
This building is particularly notable as the first major residential tower planned in the northwest quadrant of downtown Austin in quite a while — unless you count the nine-story student-oriented apartment known as The G at 1715 Guadalupe Street, as far as we can tell the Linden will become the first project of its kind developed in the immediate area since 1960s residential buildings including Westgate Tower, Cambridge Tower, Greenwood Towers, and the Penthouse Condos.
Image: Reger Holdings / Rhode Partners
The Linden joins other possible plans in this poorly-defined district including — depending on where you draw the lines — the nearly-complete Hilton Garden Inn directly next door at 301 West 17th Street, the new Travis County civil courthouse at 1700 Guadalupe Street, the office tower of unknown status at 410 West 18th Street, and many more if you count projects a few blocks south of West 15th Street — the recently-greenlighted DKG tower, the CLEAT tower, the bizarre lobbyist penthouse tower, and so on. With this area’s proximity to the half-done first phase of major improvements to the north side of the Texas Capitol Complex, not to mention a little ditty called Project Connect, it’s an obvious avenue for growth particularly in the very Austin sense that it hasn’t grown very much already.
The northwest downtown area’s slightly smaller-than-average skyline. Fun fact, you can see the office building that’s eventually getting demolished for the Linden tower in the bottom-left corner of the image. Image: AFIAA
There’s no date set for the demolition of the small 1984 office building at the site, the most recent tenant of which was the William Gammon Insurance Company, but the recent permits are an obvious first step toward making it happen. While we’re digging around, there’s also this post from the project’s sales team at DEN Property Group, which dates back to around the time the demo permit was filed this week and explains that the building will break ground “SOON” — their capital letters, not mine.
The post also mentions the building’s reserved condo units are approaching the halfway mark — well, they say “spoken-for,” but the literal meaning is that a good percentage of the Linden’s units are now under contract, by way of a non-refundable deposit from the prospective buyer that typically adds up to somewhere between 5 to 10 percent of the total purchase price. Handily enough, an article just published today in the Buffalo Business First includes this info straight from CEO Gordon Reger:
Also in Austin is the Linden, a 28-story, 117-unit condo project near the Texas capital. Reger said 35% of the condos are under contract and the $100 million project won’t even be completed until late 2023.
We’ll forgive the reporter that’s more than 1,500 miles away from Austin for not mentioning this, but to us the most notable fact about the Linden isn’t simply that it’s managed this level of sales with a completion date in late 2023, but rather that the development team has pulled it off without even demolishing the old building at the site. We recommend you act fast to lock in those pre-construction prices!
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