Y’all, I’m pleased to announce that the Hooters at 425 West Riverside Drive, Austin’s only remaining outpost of the chain, is not long for this world — permits recently filed with the city indicate a starting date for demolition on February 4, 2019, with the construction of the 15-story RiverSouth office and retail project to follow soon after. If you’ve forgotten what that looks like, here’s something to refresh your memory:
It’s not any particular beef we have with Hooters that makes this such exciting news. It’s just that the joint sits atop a roughly 1.35-acre piece of land with room for much, much more than wings and uncomfortably transactional social interactions — although, since the restaurant’s being replaced with an office building, they’re only really getting rid of the first one. I’ll be here all week!
More importantly, the project represents the first big step of the city’s South Central Waterfront Initiative, which we certainly hope will transform this part of the world through various development bonuses and other fun stuff — it’s a little planning jargon-heavy, but I explain it more and why it’s neat in the previous RiverSouth article. Right now, we’re just busy dancing on Hooters’ grave.
Anyway, demolition at this ill-fated wing shack and the rest of the site’s massive parking lot should last from February 4 – 15, according to the permit. The RiverSouth construction should kick off not long after, with an additional permit filed just today for one or more tower cranes to be assembled at the address in the near future.
In my experience, the demolition and tower crane permits don’t always get filed with the city so close together, which seems to imply that RiverSouth developer Stream Realty Partners is moving quickly on getting this thing built — maybe that means they’ve already found some solid tenants for those offices? The view of downtown from this thing is pretty good, after all.
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