Central Austin Development Roundup: The Hits Just Keep On Coming

You’d be surprised how much is going up at the Plaza Saltillo site, especially if you only see it from the highway. Photo by James Rambin.

By now, I’d really hope that you folks know the drill. It’s time to check the pulse on some projects around town, and we’re going to have a lot of fun while doing it. Alexa, play “Dublin Blues” by Guy Clark. 

Block 71

Progress at Block 71 in downtown Austin. Photo by James Rambin.

Austin’s biggest and best pit is located at the Block 71 office tower site, but it’s getting smaller every day as the building’s underground parking structure takes shape. I really enjoy getting up on top of the garage across the street and taking this exact same photo, so even though not much has changed since last time we checked it out, I’m going to keep posting photos of the site as much as possible.

Alexan Apartment Tower

Alexan Capitol is on its way. Site is being demolished and should get going soon. Cc: @JamesRambin pic.twitter.com/8wJDhj0QMi

— Sam Tenenbaum (@TenenbaumCRE) December 13, 2018

The former Texas Trucking Association building at 700 East 11th Street is down this week, with the site now being cleared for the future Alexan apartment tower courtesy of Trammell Crow Residential Company. The name for this building has jumped around a lot — we thought it would be Alexan Capitol at first, but now it looks like TCR is going with Alexan on 11th. Whatever they’re calling it, we’re looking at an expected completion date of July 2021.

300 Colorado Office Tower

And 300 Colorado site looking cleared. (@austintowers: https://t.co/3LN8LoyLq3) #atxrising pic.twitter.com/lvfO9jhqS1

— Dan Keshet🚶 (@DanKeshet) November 24, 2018

Hey, did you know they tore down the Sullivan’s building at 300 Colorado Street to make way for the office tower headed to the site? We warned you, but it’s done and gone now — plus, they assembled the crane at the site this weekend. This building’s not getting quite the same attention as other projects downtown, but it’s still not without its charms. 

A few views of the office tower headed for 300 Colorado Street. Image: Pickard Chilton / Kendall/Heaton Associates

Plaza Saltillo

A little before/after action at the Plaza Saltillo — the top photo is from October 2017, the bottom from this weekend. A year is plenty of time, but this is still a pretty impressive transformation. As a bonus, check out how fast the 901 East Sixth Street office building went up, over on the far left. Click for a larger view. Photos by James Rambin.

Stuff’s rising pretty quick all the way down the Plaza Saltillo site — it’s really hard to tell just how much is getting built there from the highway. You’ve got to walk a little further east to really see how far it goes:

Another look at Plaza Saltillo’s progress, looking east. Photo by James Rambin.

By the way, you know how Plaza Saltillo includes a bunch of office space? The big rumor lately is that the folks at Google are going to lease a big chunk of it — perhaps even an entire building!

A rendering of the completed Plaza Saltillo development. Image: Endeavor Real Estate Group.

Still, since no one with insider knowledge of this transaction would dream of going on the record about something like that lest one of the biggest companies on the planet decides to launch them into the sun, it’s gonna have to stay a rumor for now. Want to know another fun rumor I can’t report as fact without everyone getting mad at me? Google is allegedly also leasing the entire Block 185 office tower. It’s just a rumor, you can’t sue me!

6 X Guadalupe

A rendering of a ground floor space at the planned 6 X Guadalupe tower. Image: Lincoln Property Company / Gensler

Downtown’s best-named upcoming tower, 6 X Guadalupe, has a new promotional video out via developer Lincoln Property Company. I like this building’s design quite a bit, thanks to the folks at Gensler, but I’ve still always found these kinds of marketing videos pretty funny — you typically get some renderings of the building comped into the skyline, a bumping soundtrack (sometimes they do a Stevie Ray soundalike for that extra Austin flavor), and some stock footage of fit millennials doing yoga and smiling at each other in open-concept offices. That’s basically what’s going on here: