Gaining 50 Floors and Saving a Dive Bar on South Congress Avenue

A frustratingly low resolution view of the concept for a multi-tower planned redevelopment at the 500 South Congress site. Image: Related Companies / Lake Flato / KPF / TBG Partners

Although we were aware back in 2023 that New York-based megadeveloper the Related Companies was looking to redevelop a roughly six-acre collection of uninspiring properties at the corner of South Congress Avenue and West Riverside Drive, you never really know what that means until the renderings drop — and drop they did, in a late-breaking story last Friday from the Austin Business Journal outlining this transformative plan for multiple towers at the corner site rising up to 575 feet, or about 50 floors. Long story short, we’re looking at a Planned Unit Development expecting roughly 800 residential units, a 225-key hotel, 200,000 square feet of office space, a whopping 90,000 square feet of retail space to compliment the nearby shopping strips on South Congress, and 30,000 square feet of restaurant space. If that wasn’t enough, Related also plans to include a 25,000-square-foot grocery store in the project, which fills a huge niche in a region with such heavy foot traffic.

An internal view of a pedestrian retail plaza at the 500 South Congress project. Image: Related Companies / Lake Flato / KPF / TBG Partners

This is a lot to digest, especially since unlike the previous owners, Related is a company known for actually building things — if developed to these specs, this project and the redevelopment of the Statesman site would become the twin crown jewels of the South Central Waterfront District, finally bringing the walkable density and connectivity of downtown south of the river with design from renowned Texan architecture firm Lake Flato alongside Related regulars Kohn Pedersen Fox and local landscape designers TBG Partners. We are also hyped about the plan’s proposal for a boardwalk along East Bouldin Creek, an idea we’ve seen thrown around for years that would finally create a pedestrian connection between South First Street and Congress Avenue in this area.

Just awesome https://t.co/SDn44VcRHa pic.twitter.com/TgkF3G2JGB

— Cyrus Tehrani (@housebostonorg) February 22, 2024

The ABJ coverage mostly wraps up the details of the plan as they are today, but there’s one detail missing you know we’re thinking about — all this new housing and retail sounds great, but what’s gonna happen to Ego’s?

The closure of this iconic cave-like bar, which has occupied a windowless space inside the parking structure of the office building at 510 South Congress Avenue since 1979 and is popular with state lawmakers and other karaoke fans, would be a tremendous loss for Austin dives. Good news is, people at Related are thinking about this — here’s Dawood Rouben, one of the developers briefing the city’s Environmental Commission on the project last week:

If you’re familiar with 500 South Congress, it’s obviously got Ego’s on it, right? Which will most likely be the only thing that remains, and gets relocated somewhere else in the development — we think it is a mainstay and staple of the neighborhood.

— Dawood Rouben, Developer, The Related Companies

This is a relief, but it opens up a whole new can of worms. How does one relocate a dive bar to a space in what is probably going to be a very expensive project full of shiny new storefronts and make it suck enough, aesthetically speaking, to live up to its previous grungy legacy? (“You ain’t thinking of getting rid of the dank, are you, Moe?”)

Does Related have what it takes to ask its star design team to create a space for Ego’s in the new development with no windows? Is it even ethical for an architect to sign off on something like that? Do the bar’s owners realize how much of the character of their business is derived from its charming seediness, or do they actually want something a little nicer? Now that we know the project intends to keep the bar somewhere on its grounds, these are the questions we should be asking — anyway, pledging to keep the one thing at this corner anyone cares deeply about is a savvy move from Related. After all, the inevitably ultra-luxe South Central Waterfront District could really use at least one bar where you can still get a beer for less than $5.00.