Q: Since last month, there’s been a bunch of work taking place at the Austonian. I see what looks like scaffolding and some other equipment up there. What’s going on? A: It might look like window washing, but it turns out what’s taking place at the Austonian is of a slightly more critical nature — it’s…
Huh, These Towers All Kinda Look Exactly the Same, Don’t They?
Listen, we’re not trying to cause any trouble here. But we also have eyes, so it’s hard not to notice the subtext of today’s Austin Business Journal first look at the design of the downtown office tower now known as The Republic, headed to 308 Guadalupe Street — namely, that the building looks extremely similar to Block 71, the office tower planned only a few blocks…
Lake Walter E. Long: Austin’s Most Overlooked Opportunity
Do you ever think about Lake Walter E. Long? That’s not a trick question, really — in my experience, many people just don’t think about the lake or the massive swaths of city parkland surrounding it, even though it’s only a short drive east from downtown. Unless you enjoy fishing, that is, in which case you’re probably already…
What’s Next for Austin’s Dockless Urban Scooters? This Evil Highway Has Plans
Y’all probably already know me as Austin’s preeminent lobbyist for the rights of evil highways and endless gridlock everywhere, so I’m not gonna front — my strong preference is for all modes of transportation that don’t work on MoPac to be critically shunned like a new Maroon 5 record. But the dockless urban scooter is a special…
Putting Teeth in Austin’s South Central Waterfront Redevelopment Plan
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…