Though it’s pretty far removed from my typical beat of shilling for downtown Austin condos and memorializing old tower designs, I couldn’t help but notice a fairly bonkers breaking news item in the local real estate development world this week, a story that somehow bypassed all the usual suspects and showed up in “luxury lifestyle” publication Robb…
Remembering the Nahua Tower, Downtown Austin’s Unbuilt Icon
Judging by the handful of drawings available, the 35-story office development headed for downtown’s Block 185 is worth getting excited about. Its curved, sail-like shape might be the most interesting skyscraper design we’ve seen in Austin since the Frost Bank Tower — not that we’re ignoring all the other competition around town. But when I came across these illustrations,…
CodeNEXT Is Dead, Long Live CodeNEXT!
CodeNEXT, Austin’s long-awaited rejiggering of the land development code, is dead. Mayor Steve Adler was the first politician to acknowledge the reality that “something has gone horribly wrong” and the project had been “poisoned” by “misinformation, hyperbole, fearmongering, and divisive rhetoric.” The news cycle moved from breaking news to roundups and roundups of takes, and now we’re at the part…
At Last, Here’s Our First Look at the Block 185 Office Tower
The final undeveloped section of the former Green Water Treatment Plant in downtown Austin, the 1.26-acre site known as Block 185 at 601 West Second Street, has remained an object of curiosity for years. Even as the plots around it developed into buildings like Northshore, the new Central Library, Austin Proper, and so on, the future of that last block…
Downtown Austin’s 600 Guadalupe Tower: Brought to You by the Letter ‘X’
The 66-story, 848-foot residential and office tower planned at the northwest corner of Sixth and Guadalupe Streets in downtown Austin got itself a shiny write-up on this very site just last week. But wait, there’s more — a new brochure for the project released only a few days ago by developer Lincoln Property Company includes a slight adjustment to…
With Demolition Scheduled Later This Month, It’s Last Call for 300 Colorado
We’ve given extensive attention to the development headed for 300 Colorado Street in downtown Austin, not the least of which was focused on the prospective building’s minor identity crisis — first a residential tower, then an office tower, with an entirely new design to boot. But before the 31-story office tower planned at the site by Cousins Properties, Ironwood Real Estate, and Riverside…