So we’ve already heard the major details on the residential tower project planned at the former site of the Villas on Town Lake, a condo community built in 1982 in the pre-Rainey Street boom era. The complex sold to the Sutton Company last year, but now Dallas-based developer Genesis Real Estate Group has taken the reins, with a 40-story…
One Way Out: 5th and Colorado Streets Converting for Two-Way Traffic Downtown
It’s not something many of us have to think about very often, but you might still be interested to learn that there’s a growing movement against one-way streets in major cities all over the country. Originally built in dense urban centers as a method of ostensibly speeding up traffic flow by consolidating it in a single direction…
What’s the Latest on the Emerging Downtown District East of the Capitol?
American literary theorist Kenneth Burke famously described the nature of mankind as “rotten with perfection,” so obsessed with defining the “proper” names for everything around us that we lose any ability to see outside of the hierarchies we’ve created. I’ve never seen this observation demonstrated faster than when I use vague terminology to describe overlapping…
It’s Mueller Time, Baby!
Austin’s Robert Mueller Municipal Airport closed in 1999. The Mueller planned unit development that would transform the site’s 700 acres into a new neighborhood and city district broke ground in 2007. Time flies, huh? Now that it’s 10 years later, what’s going on at Mueller? The district isn’t completely finished, but it’s certainly well on…
West Campus Makes Way for High Density Developments
There is no shortage lately of real estate investors willing to bet on West Campus, and the demand for upscale student housing is about to bring another high-density project to Rio Grande Street. Scannell Development Company, operating as Scannell Properties , is an Indianapolis company proposing a seven-story building at 2100 Rio Grande Street, which is directly…
Texas Limits On Tree Regulation Might Accomplish What CodeNEXT Won’t
You’ve probably heard about CodeNEXT. You’ve likely also heard about Gov. Greg Abbott wanting to limit Texas cities’ ability to regulate trees on private property. Pushback from neighborhood protectionists is already beginning to squander the hope that CodeNEXT could materially increase density in Central Austin. So here’s my hypothesis: the State of Texas prohibiting Austin from regulating tree removal will be more impactful…