An aerial view of the Midtown RV Park in Govalle before its recent closure. Image: Bing Maps
The Midtown RV Park, located at 720 Airport Boulevard on the far east end of Austin’s equally far-east Govalle neighborhood, is no more. In its place will rise Nexus East, a 352-unit apartment project by local development firm Ardent Residential, split between two four-story buildings atop the former RV park’s sizable 8.375-acre tract.
Image: Ardent Residential / Desarollos Delta
Image: Ardent Residential / Desarollos Delta
The Nexus development — though it looks pretty nice and features live-work units on the ground floor of one of its buildings, which is something we love to see in new projects — is actually most notable to us not for its design, but what it represents as an indicator of Govalle’s future growth.
Image: Ardent Residential / Desarollos Delta
When we covered the rise of the Guthrie apartments elsewhere in this neighborhood in 2017, we noted that the project was a new high-water mark for density in one of the most remote sections of East Austin — and two years later, the mark’s getting higher, with more than a dozen major projects in various stages of realization currently on the map in Govalle alone. So here’s that map — click the markers for info on each project:
The neighborhood’s remote location means that despite recent upgrades and the proposed pink line of Capital Metro’s Project Connect, transit access in the region isn’t great; and the combination of its low-income heritage and history of city neglect for perhaps that very reason has created a general suspicion among residents about any new development — even seemingly well-meaning development. Still, that hasn’t stopped the enormous lineup of projects seen in the map above, some of which are including income-restricted residences and other amenities to smooth out their impact on the area at least somewhat.
Govalle has a quiet character unlike anywhere else in East Austin, though growth is on the way just like anywhere else in the city.
But some developers have still managed to gain the approval of the neighborhood. The ThinkEast master-planned development, though it’s technically inside the Johnston Terrace region a stone’s throw east of Govalle, is well-liked enough that it’s actually been cited at least once by residents opposing a completely different multifamily project in the area — the other development, they said, wouldn’t improve the neighborhood compared to ThinkEast, which includes a significant affordable housing component. There’s something you don’t hear every day.
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