Image: Urbanspace / Nelsen Partners / dwg.
Earlier this year saw the announcement of a mixed-use tower in the rapidly-rising Rainey Street District by local developer and Urbanspace CEO Kevin Burns, but since that news broke back in March we haven’t heard much else about the project — described at the time as a hotel, residential, and retail building with 50-odd stories headed for the corner of Davis and Rainey Streets atop an approximately 0.37-acre assembly including 90 and 92 Rainey Street, addresses currently home to respective drinking establishments Container Bar and Bungalow.
The tower, currently only named using its two addresses, is up for discussion at this Monday’s meeting of the City of Austin Design Commission, which will evaluate the building’s adherence to the city’s Urban Design Guidelines — and, as you know if you’ve followed this rodeo before, compliance with those guidelines is a gatekeeper requirement for inclusion in the city’s Downtown Density Bonus Program, which will enable the 90-92 tower to rise as tall as the developers would prefer it to with a current proposed floor-to-area ratio of 36.7:1.
A previously-released rendering of the 90-92 Rainey tower. Image: Urbanspace / Nelsen Partners / dwg.
We won’t find out the finer points of the Commission’s take on the building until Monday, but for now, the presentation documents for the upcoming meeting provide us with a better view of the tower than ever before — not to mention more specific details about its height, which has risen to 53 floors (606 feet total) from a previously described count of 51. That makes it one of the tallest towers proposed in the district, and certainly a game-changer for the skyline in the north end of the Rainey area.
Looking west at the 90-92 tower and its neighbors, some of which haven’t been built. Image: Urbanspace / Nelsen Partners / dwg.
These renderings, showing the exterior of the tower with its surroundings, provide context for the project within the larger development of the Rainey Street District — you’ll notice that the two towers in the background directly to the left of 90-92 Rainey in the image above don’t actually exist yet. That’s the twin towers of the Travis project, the second of which could rise as high as 60 floors if all goes according to plan.
A closer perspective including the Travis towers is below — again, they’re the gray masses to the direct left of the 90-92 tower, a bit in the background from this angle:
Another westward-ish view of the 90-92 tower and its neighbors — to the building’s immediate right is the Quincy. Image: Urbanspace / Nelsen Partners / dwg.
Looking roughly northwest at the 90-92 tower including its southeastern corner at Rainey and Davis Streets. Image: Urbanspace / Nelsen Partners / dwg.
The corner of Rainey and Davis Streets is the project’s most active, containing the hotel entrance and some sort of potential taco stand situation as you can see in both the street-level renderings further down and the floor plan of the ground level below — but remember, this tower will also supposedly integrate the two bars currently on its property into the northeast corner of the building itself by stacking them on top of each other, a strange but very welcome design choice.
From this perspective, Rainey Street’s on the bottom and Davis Street’s on the left. Image: Urbanspace / Nelsen Partners / dwg.
Below, we’re looking directly towards the southeastern corner of the tower at Davis and Rainey Streets, where Container Bar is now:
Image: Urbanspace / Nelsen Partners / dwg.
Another view of the corner, looking south down Rainey Street from this perspective. Glad they included the scooters! Image: Urbanspace / Nelsen Partners / dwg.
A view of the same corner area, looking east up Rainey Street this time. Image: Urbanspace / Nelsen Partners / dwg.
We’ve seen images of the building’s interesting approach towards integrating the existing bars on the property before, but here’s another look, with Bungalow now plunked down on top of Container Bar:
Looking straight at the eastern-facing end of the tower from Rainey Street, with the space carved out for Container Bar and Bungalow visible on the right. Image: Urbanspace / Nelsen Partners / dwg.
A bit higher on the tower, we’ve got views of the seventh-floor pool deck area:
Image: Urbanspace / Nelsen Partners / dwg.
Image: Urbanspace / Nelsen Partners / dwg.
Even higher up at the building’s 52nd story is the “sky deck,” which we get a few views of below — this is likely a resident amenity, but who knows?
Image: Urbanspace / Nelsen Partners / dwg.
Image: Urbanspace / Nelsen Partners / dwg.
Now to brass tacks — the building’s total square footage is 582,513 square feet, with 349,236 square feet of that occupied by a 424-key hotel, the brand of which is currently unknown. Atop the tower’s hotel section are 198 residential units, reportedly apartments, totaling 225,507 square feet, including studios, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom units. There’s also a reported 19 affordable apartment units located on site, along with 5,825 square feet of commercial space including the aforementioned bars at the ground floor of the structure.
Along with Urbanspace, its designers include local architects Nelsen Partners and landscape architects dwg. Its construction timeline is currently unknown, but previous reports indicate a possible start date in 2021 — we’ll probably have to see what the commission says Monday before we find out any more about that.
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