It’s difficult to say anything new about Hyde Park. Perhaps Austin’s most beloved central neighborhood, the area bound by Guadalupe, West 45th, Duval, and West 38th Streets has been extensively preserved, chronicled, celebrated, and fought for with an intensity arguably unlike that of any other part of the city. Like Windsor Park, the similarly posh-sounding neighborhood that…
Downtown’s Eight-Block Transformation Kicks Off at Capitol Complex
Unlike a lot of downtown Austin developments that kick around in a state of limbo for what feels like a million years before turning dirt, the Texas Facilities Commission isn’t screwing around. Commission documents from earlier this month indicate that construction on the underground parking garage component of the Capitol Complex Master Plan’s Texas Mall project will begin by June 2019,…
Central Austin Development Roundup: We See Buildings Everywhere
You folks ever heard of the Tetris effect? You know, that thing where you play so much Tetris, you see the blocks everywhere you go, even in your sleep? I have the same thing, except with buildings. Anyway, here’s a few updates on some downtown stuff — building-related stuff, naturally. Don’t ever say we don’t have fun….
Australian Investors Weigh Development Options on East Cesar Chavez
On the eve of the Fourth of July, local architectural firm Thrower Design submitted documents to the city’s Development Services Department describing two concepts for a three-story multifamily project that would theoretically be built near the corner of East Cesar Chavez and Clara Streets. We qualify the concept as theoretical, because the company that retained…
Getting Past the Facade at Congress Avenue’s Most Eligible Vacant Buildings
The stretch of Congress Avenue north of the lake is fairly important, I’d say. You might cornily consider it the spine of the ever-changing book that is Austin — heck, all the numbered streets running across it receive prefixes of East or West in deference to its status as “The Main Street of Texas,” with thousands of…
Let’s Remember the 5th & Brazos Hotel Tower, Which Might Actually Happen
One of downtown Austin’s most long-delayed pieces of tower vaporware might finally take shape at a parking lot on the northeast corner of Fifth and Brazos Streets. We can say that fairly confidently based on nearly five years of renderings, news stories, and various city filings, but the smoking gun appears to be the imminent closure of the actual…