Site prep currently underway at the long-vacant lot south of the University Park office building within the Concordia PUD. Photo by James Rambin.
The planned unit development (PUD) agreement between developers and the city for the redevelopment of Concordia University’s 22-acre former campus, located on the west side of I-35 between East 32nd Street and Concordia Avenue, passed all the way back in 2007. But a successful deal doesn’t plunk down buildings overnight, especially when its master developers are imprisoned for bank fraud — and so, more than a decade and a few ownership changes later, you’ll still see two big undeveloped tracts at this site, if you’re moving slowly enough on the upper deck of I-35 to take a gander.
Looking over the former Concordia tract, can you spot the two large undeveloped lots next to the I-35 frontage road? And don’t say “the Hancock Golf Course” — your heart’s in the right place, but you’re being a smartass. Image: Google Maps
The PUD as it stands today contains the Sabina and Marq Uptown apartment communities, along with the University Park mixed-use office building, which is hemmed in on its north and south ends by that aforementioned undeveloped land.
(The residents of this area don’t seem to particularly care about the gaps, since they find these empty fields very convenient for the needs of their dogs.)
Site prep underway at the southern undeveloped tract at the Concordia PUD. Photo by James Rambin.
But you also may have noticed the recent installation of fences around the lot south of University Park, with site prep finally underway for a development long-delayed by the economy, or prison time, or whatever — it’s also by a different developer than the original outfit, but we probably didn’t need to tell you that.
Image: Trinsic Residential Group / Womack + Hampton
Here’s our first look at Aura Thirty2, a five-story, 379-unit apartment development planned at the southern empty tract of the PUD by Trinsic Residential Group, which is also bringing its Aura multifamily brand to other sites around town including a nearly-complete community on East Riverside Drive and another project theorized atop the whale-shaped southeastern corner of Lamar Boulevard and Koenig Lane.
With architecture by Dallas firm Womack + Hampton and landscape work by Austin outfit Benkendorfer+Associates, the Thirty2 building looks like business as usual for midrise construction in this part of town, though it appears to lack a ground-floor retail component. Its units contain between one and three bedrooms, with resident amenities including a pool and rooftop deck — plus a dog park to replace the current function of its empty field. It’s scheduled to open in July 2020, according to its site.
But the miracles of the Concordia PUD don’t stop there — another apartment community is in the planning phase at the northern empty tract directly east of Sabina, though site prep isn’t yet apparent here:
The future site of the Troubadour apartment development, located on the vacant tract of land north of the University Park office building of the Concordia PUD. Photo by James Rambin.
The details here are a little fuzzier, but we’re looking at a six-story, 320-unit building by local developers Wayfinder Real Estate, and it’s from that firm’s website we find the single available rendering of the project, going by the name Troubadour:
Image: Wayfinder Real Estate
The unit mix is similar to the previous project, with one to three-bedroom units on deck. The timeline for its completion or even the design architect isn’t clear at the moment, but some filings mention local landscape architecture firm Blu Fish Collaborative — the “Central Austin Apartments” entry in that firm’s portfolio could very easily be renderings for this development, but we can’t really be sure.
Neither new building seems to contain additional retail, but at least they’ll bring more residents to the area, parts of which feel like a bit of a ghost town at the moment, and apparently can’t sustain the small amount of retail already located here. These two projects might not be as exciting as a downtown tower, but they’ll flesh out the current half-baked Concordia PUD — which, after 12 years, is pretty decent news!
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