Image: High Street Residential / ESG Architecture / Nudge Design
Even with a general slowdown in construction starts across the city, things look sunnier than ever for new multifamily development in the area of North Austin near the Domain and Q2 Stadium. Despite being saddled with the extremely clumsy compound regional name of “North Burnet / Gateway” — like it or not, almost everybody calls it “The Domain,” sorry — the district enjoys the loosest zoning restrictions in the city outside of downtown proper, with the latest updates allowing towers rising up to 491 feet assuming they provide community benefits under the area’s regulating plan.
A current view of the tower site near the northeast corner of Burnet Road and Braker Lane. Photo by James Rambin
One of the latest projects taking advantage of this district’s unusually chill approach to height restrictions is the unnamed plan by Trammell Crow’s multifamily subsidiary High Street Residential, which is developing a 20-story apartment tower at a 2.2-acre site near the northeast corner of the increasingly busy intersection of Braker Lane and Burnet Road formerly occupied by a BBVA Chase Bank branch at 10711 Burnet Road. But unlike a lot of towers we’ve seen announced across town, the developers are actually doing something in the real world to prepare for its construction — demolition on the former bank building kicked off here last month, and the structure is now completely removed with site prep seemingly underway.
Could one of the couple dozen North Austin high-rise proposals planned around the Domain & Q2 area finally be happening? Demo is underway for the 20-story residential project at 10711 Burnet. Credit: mtb_jeremy pic.twitter.com/WEpBUim9z6
— The ATX (@TheATX1) November 20, 2023
Although we don’t have a construction timeline confirmed at the moment, plans for this site approved by the city describe a tower containing 416 total residences, with 54 of those apartments income-restricted as affordable rental housing for individuals or families earning up to 60 percent of the region’s median household income — in 2023, that’s $49,080 or less for an individual or no more than $70,080 for a family of four.
Image: High Street Residential / ESG Architecture / Nudge Design
The project also includes roughly 5,700 square feet of retail space on the ground floor facing Burnet Road, below a garage podium set to contain approximately 500 spaces. The building’s development team includes Minneapolis-based architecture studio ESG, working alongside local landscape firm Nudge Design, general contractor Andres Construction, and engineering firms GarzaEMC, Urban Structures, and Blum Consulting Engineers.
Image: High Street Residential / ESG Architecture / Nudge Design
This location amusingly sums up the piecemeal approach to this neighborhood’s slow but steady march towards density — you’ve got all the new towers at the Domain to the west, there’s Q2 Stadium and its upcoming McKalla Station for the Red Line to the south, and next door you’ve got a 7-Eleven gas station and a drive-thru McDonald’s. It’s only a matter of time until most of the low-rise lots around here redevelop, but at the moment the patchwork urban environment is reminiscent of Houston, which is kind of fun to watch as long as you aren’t expecting the neighborhood to become walkable overnight. It’s a process, and city planning staff say they’re working on new density bonuses for the area that could incentivize developments to include more infrastructure for pedestrians. We would like to see it.
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