An illustration of the 311 West Sixth Street building from a 1986 Austin American-Statesman ad for Beans Restaurant & Bar, which occupied the space at the time. Image: Austin History Center
The 60-story downtown Austin apartment and office tower planned at 321 West Sixth Street by banking outfit BBVA USA and national developer Ryan Companies is one step closer to breaking ground at its 0.47-acre site on the southeast corner of West Sixth and Guadalupe Streets, despite a few setbacks on the national stage making the timing of that groundbreaking unclear for the moment.
A rendering of the BBVA tower from its architects at local firm Page. Image: Page
At its monthly meeting held earlier this week via Zoom with only a few technical difficulties, the City of Austin’s Historic Landmark Commission approved the demolition of a 1927 structure occupying a small part of the future tower’s footprint at 311 West Sixth Street. That 4,794-square-foot structure, though its charming and partially ivy-covered brick facades feel right at home for the north edge of the city’s historically-interesting Warehouse District, isn’t actually historic — at least not officially speaking. Turns out it’s just old.
This is good news for the (very narrow!) BBVA tower, and terrible news for fans of Maiko Sushi Lounge, which has occupied the building since 2005, the last of a string of eateries operating out of the space since the 1930s — before then, it was a Maytag appliance store. Its most prominent tenant was Italian restaurant and deli Caruso’s Cafe, which operated from 1931 until its owner Pasquale Caruso’s death in 1966.
An Austin American-Statesman ad for Caruso’s Cafe dating back to November 1935. Image: Austin History Center
Among other reasons for its lack of eligibility for historic designation, it turns out the building’s been messed with a little too much in recent years to its detriment — though you wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell from the street, the western half is actually an addition dating back only a few decades at most, designed to match the rest of the structure by looking older than it is. The facade of the truly old part of the building is heavily modified with glass and steel to become the restaurant’s front window, and even though its upgrades look really good, that’s also not great news:
The building is a one-story brick commercial building with some ornamental brickwork in the raised bricks forming patterns in the storefront and the stepped parapet wall; however, the storefront has been modified with the installation of a modern metal-framed window and door system. The building reflects a common type and does not appear to have the architectural distinction to qualify as a historic landmark.
— Historic Landmark Commission Staff Comments, April 27, 2020
The ivy currently growing over basically the entire brick crown of the old section’s facade hides a lot, but you can see the ornamental brickwork better from this street view below taken back in 2014, when someone cleared it off for a bit — the ivy, not prone to messing around, has since grown back to its current density on the building.
Even if it’s not historic historic, it’s a structure with character far exceeding the bank next door that will also be demolished for the sake of this new project — and even if it hurts a little, losing the 1927 building in favor of the BBVA tower is worth it if it means we can also banish a land use as embarrassingly inefficient as a single-story drive-thru bank on a major corner in the middle of downtown. Wouldn’t feel right to have something like that sitting directly across the intersection from the new tallest tower in the city — it would be like an Arby’s sitting next door to the Independent. Now we just need to hit the post office across the street with the world’s largest wrecking ball.
An aerial view of the BBVA tower site at the southeastern corner of West Sixth and Guadalupe Streets. Image: Bing Maps
Though there isn’t a set date for the demolition at this point, its application documents indicate the old building can come down once the BBVA tower’s site plan is approved by the city — and that process is ongoing, though it’s unclear exactly how a recession could impact the timeline of the tower’s construction even after its plan is approved. Depending on what happens to local development over the next few months, a big national outfit like Ryan Companies might have an easier time keeping the wheels spinning on this project, but trying to predict anything at the moment runs the risk of making you look kinda goofy somewhere down the road.
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