Updated: May 24, 2018* City of Austin Principal Planner Alan Holt recently gave the Design Commission an update on the South Central Waterfront Vision Framework Plan , with an eye toward how to implement the document. This is the document that City Council approved the summer of 2016, but Holt made clear that its success requires a governing board that does…
Looking Back at the Ads of Downtown Austin’s 1980s Tower Boom
Despite the current breakneck pace of development in Austin, the city’s original tower boom took place in the 1980s, with at least 12 different buildings over 15 stories tall completed in downtown over the course of the decade. In fact, other than the Capitol and a few trailblazing outliers like the Austin National Bank tower, what many locals…
Mapping the Trail Foundation’s 15 Plans to Improve Austin’s Hike-and-Bike Trail
It’s been 15 years since the Trail Foundation took over the upkeep and improvement of Austin’s iconic Hike-and-Bike trail, and to celebrate, the nonprofit recently announced 15 planned improvement projects to be completed along the 10-mile path over the next five years. Two of the projects are general improvements for the entire thing —
Central Austin Development Roundup: It’s Tower Time, Y’all
Today, we’re just going to casually chat about some towers downtown. That sounds nice, doesn’t it? It’s certainly a lot nicer than me trying to write an entire article about one of these projects, since the updates we’re about to discuss are fairly small. Still, don’t you like feeling informed? Of course you do. Hit…
Fun Facts on Downtown’s Upcoming Alexan Capitol Apartment Tower
We’ve been following the Alexan Capitol apartment tower planned by developer Trammell Crow Residential Company for quite a while, but things appear to be moving right along for this 30-story mixed-use project bound for a relatively sleepy corner of downtown at 700 East 11th Street. New city filings for the building have provided us with a few fun…
Austin Curiosities: Hyde Park’s Historic Blue Bonnet Court
Blue Bonnet Court, an unassuming building at 4407 Guadalupe Street sandwiched between the Cottonwood Condos and Shanghai Kate’s tattoo shop, is easy to miss unless you look twice. Still, over the last few years the little complex hidden in Hyde Park kept catching my eye, so I decided to get to the bottom of its…