Part of the view of downtown from the RiverSouth building planned at 425 Riverside Drive. Image: Stream Realty Partners
Hello, Austin! It’s been wet the last few days — did we all collectively forget what that felt like? Anyway, now that we’re complaining about humidity instead of heat, I thought it was high time to hike through the streets of downtown and beyond to pick you up some fresh content. Don’t ever say we don’t sweat for our extremely classy, intelligent readership!
425 Riverside – “RiverSouth”
Image: Stream Realty Partners
Austin’s own tribute to the iconic Jawa sandcrawler from the original Star Wars is getting serious this week, with a breaking Statesman story describing the 15-story Stream Realty Partners office and retail development at 425 East Riverside — a.k.a. the Snoopy PUD, f.k.a. the Hooter’s PUD — which is now going by “RiverSouth.” There’s a new website for the project, and it’s just pumped to the bursting with renderings.
Image: Stream Realty Partners
Expect this puppy to open Q2 2021 — and as the first piece in what will hopefully soon become the fully-realized South Central Waterfront Initiative, we should also expect the hits to keep on coming in this area.
Fairmont Austin Crown
You see that? That’s a burnt orange crown at the Fairmont Austin, lit up after the UT win — which is super cool, except it raises the very valid question of why they aren’t doing something interesting with the crown lighting every night. Since they’re using LEDs, the building could theoretically put on a pretty impressive light show, but this hasn’t really happened as far as I can see. I may be in the minority in this opinion, but Dallas does a pretty good job with this.
The Independent
The crane at the Independent has officially been dismantled, so if the building’s interior is still on track, it’ll open by the end of the year. We’re still getting used to its 58-story presence in the skyline, and everyone seems to have their own hot takes about its appearance, but the sheer height is certainly a welcome addition to the downtown area. It’s only got a few years to remain Austin’s tallest building, but for the time being, the Independent reigns supreme.
Austin Proper
A rendering of Austin Proper’s pool deck. Image: Austin Proper / Facebook
Austin Proper topped out late last month, and its management celebrated the milestone with a pretty killer video of the project and its surrounding area.
This is a pretty neat building, all things considered — have you seen our photos of the site back when it wasn’t topped out? Pretty neat stuff, but it seems overdue for an update, doesn’t it? Maybe we should make that happen next week.
Fifth and Lavaca Street Tower Getting Bigger?
One nice thing about a tower at the southwest corner of Fifth and Lavaca Streets is that it will cover the one blank wall of the Plaza Lofts, seen on the right. Other than that blank wall, it’s a really nice building! Photo by James Rambin.
A demolition permit was filed last week for 307 West Fifth Street — no doubt related to expanding the footprint for the probable residential tower development headed to the corner of Fifth and Lavaca Streets. With no additional context besides the demolition permit for the address, we can’t be sure what’s in store.
Block 71
A current view of excavations at the Block 71 tower site. Photo by James Rambin.
Have you seen the pit over at Block 71 lately? After they took down Ashbel Smith Hall — which feels like it was only yesterday, even though it was six months ago — Trammell Crow Company has wasted no time getting the site excavated in preparation for its mixed-use office tower project. It’s deep! Like, just look at that hole. You could fit an awful lot of stuff in there — which is the plan, considering the multiple floors of underground parking in the design of the building. It’ll be pretty exciting to see this tower actually take shape.
PARK(ing) Day 2018
Urban design firm Asakura Robinson’s converted parking space during PARK(ing) Day 2017. Photo by James Rambin.
I’d be negligent not to mention PARK(ing) Day 2018, especially after giving it some attention last year — in a nutshell, this one-day event shows the potential of reclaiming parking space and recontextualizing it as the public space it actually is, by allowing the public to do just that.
On Friday, September 21, members of the public, as well as companies and organizations, can request a parking space on Congress Avenue — and, for a small fee, build their own public installations atop it. The deadline to sign up for a space of your own is this Monday, so there’s still time to get your application in! The trend appears to be building something with hammocks, so keep that in mind.
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