A rendering of the Centro project looking northeast from the corner of East Fifth and Navasota Streets. Features including ground-floor retail space and a rooftop amenity deck are visible. Image: Gensler Austin / Notion Workshop
A mixed-use development planned a stone’s throw from the Plaza Saltillo Station of the Capital MetroRail Red Line will construct an estimated 300,000 square feet of office space and 25,000 square feet of street-level retail space in its first phase — and once the project is completely built out, it could span nearly two full blocks of East Austin’s rapidly developing Plaza Saltillo Transit-Oriented District.
Known at the moment as Centro, the project by local developers Riverside Resources will eventually occupy a roughly 3.25-acre land assembly located directly north of the Plaza Saltillo Station and inside the transit-oriented development district surrounding it, comprising the majority of the two adjacent blocks between Navasota, East Sixth, Comal, and East Fifth Streets — not very far from additional growth within the TOD, including Endeavor Real Estate Group’s massive Saltillo mixed-use development and the nearby Foundry and 4 East projects by Cielo Property Group.
The City of Austin’s land use map for the Plaza Saltillo TOD, with the Centro project’s site highlighted in red. The first phase of the project will develop the block west of Onion Street. Image: City of Austin
Centro’s first phase, which could kick off as soon as winter 2020, will occupy the block west of Onion Street — with a later second phase, its use currently unannounced, expected to develop the remaining land east of Onion Street.
By the way, fans of the legendary East Austin Tex-Mex institution Cisco’s, located just beyond the eastern edge of the project’s site, have nothing to worry about — the developers say the historic restaurant, along with the White Horse honky-tonk behind it at the northwest corner of East Fifth and Comal Streets, will not be affected.
A graphic from the developer showing the Centro development’s location and proximity to the Plaza Saltillo Station compared to the distance between other central office properties and the MetroRail Red Line’s Downtown Station. We’ve added the red circle around the actual project site so you don’t get lost. Image: Riverside Resources
The development’s initial phase, as seen in the rendering at the top of this article provided by its architects at Gensler Austin, will contain two five-story office buildings above four levels of underground parking. In keeping with the spirit of the Plaza Saltillo TOD’s design principles, the project will close the stretch of Onion Street dividing its full assembly from north to south between East Sixth and East Fifth Streets to traffic, converting the space to a landscaped “paseo” providing public pedestrian access through the development to the Red Line station.
Looking south towards Plaza Saltillo Station from the section of Onion Street that will be pedestrianized as part of the Centro project.
In addition to the paseo space, a vacated alley currently splitting the full site between Comal and Navasota Streets will also be integrated into the project, expected in the first phase to provide pedestrian access between Navasota Street and the paseo formerly known as Onion Street. Skybridges crossing over this area will connect the second floors of the first phase’s two office structures, enabling larger contiguous leased spaces for the building’s tenants.
The first phase’s 25,000 square feet of ground-floor restaurant and retail space will face East Fifth and East Sixth Streets, as well as the Onion Street paseo, providing a pedestrian presence outside of just the building’s office tenants — and a logical place to put a bar for train commuters, in our opinion.
A site plan of the Centro project’s first phase as seen in city filings, showing its two office buildings split horizontally by a former alley, with the Onion Street paseo visible on the right side of the plan. Image: Gensler Austin / Riverside Resources / Nudge Design
Along with Riverside Resources and Gensler Austin, current city documents related to the opening phase of the Centro project include references to local landscape architecture firm Nudge Design and engineering company Big Red Dog.
The site of the development is currently occupied mostly by warehouse buildings and the former home of Nuevo Leon, a Tex-Mex joint that shuttered in 2013. Nine of the properties comprising the full Centro land assembly were purchased by entities associated with Riverside Resources last month from a holding company representing the Walton family of Walmart fame, which had owned the land since 2013.
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