Previously, I have been skeptical of a convention center expansion. As a member of the Visitor Impact Task Force, I came around to a positive recommendation after the Task Force recommended ways to make expansion a positive for the city: Incorporating expansion as part of a larger tower to share costs and add activity when the convention center isn’t being used. Keeping…
Austin’s Rich History of Getting Mad at Skyscrapers Begins At Norwood Tower
A few months back, downtown Austin’s changing skyline went viral. A photographic comparison from roughly the same vantage point demonstrating the building boom over the past decade bounced around Twitter and Facebook and Reddit for several weeks, often accompanied by sneers and jeers from cats who pined for those sunny slopes of ten years ago. Never mind…
Welcome to Bizarro Austin
There’s a neighborhood in central Austin that everybody knows but only its true students really understand. It’s a place where the normal laws of neighborhoods (or zoning ordinances at least) don’t apply. A place where up is down, zig is zag, and 40-minutes cursing at bumper-to-bumper traffic on MoPac is 15 minutes humming with your…
Micro-Housing Finally Heads Downtown
Ever since the closure and rezoning of the old Ecology Action recycling center in downtown Austin’s Red River Cultural District at 703 East Ninth Street, we’ve been following the trail of a planned mixed-use development for the location that teased the possibility of micro-housing units. Here’s what we knew last year: Sackman Enterprises, which is also developing 70 Rainey , plans a restaurant, retail, micro-unit…
FIRST LOOK: Fourth&, East Austin’s Latest Design-Minded Condo Project
The TOWERS Realty team recently had the opportunity to tour Fourth&, a 97-unit condo development by Capsa Ventures in East Austin, located at the corner of Fourth and Chicon Streets — I guess that’s where they got the name. Fourth& is a particularly interesting project, as far as midrise multifamily developments go, for a couple of…
YIMBY and Placemaking are the perfect pair
People get involved in shaping cities for different reasons. Some because they ride bikes or take trains, some because of a professional interest, and some because the rent is too damn high. As rents, land use, public space, and transportation are deeply interrelated, people who are interested in one often bleed over into another. But…