Let’s Check In With the West Avenue Residential Tower Plan

A view of the 506 West Avenue site, showing its proximity to downtown Austin condo tower Fifth & West. Image: Bing Maps

It’s been four years since our mildly controversial assertion that a new downtown residential tower could soon rise at 506 and 508 West Avenue, adjacent tracts currently occupied by restaurants Irene’s and Taquero Mucho — and although nothing’s broken ground yet at this 0.57-acre land assembly, it’s become increasingly clear that a tower plan is moving forward at this site. Notification letters arrived earlier this month for all property owners and residents within 500 feet of the 506-508 properties, indicating that the city had received an application for administrative approval of a site plan for a residential building at this location. Here’s a picture of one we received from a reader, in case you don’t believe us for some reason:

As we’ve explored before, the two properties are owned by a limited partnership known as 506 West Avenue LP, connected with local developers Manifold Real Estate and its founder Tyler Grooms — that LP also owns an office property across the street from this site at 507 West Avenue, along with nearby bars facing West Sixth Street including Concrete Cowboy and the Dogwood, meaning Manifold has a lot of development potential for tower projects on both sides of West Avenue. But at the moment, these recent notification letters and the site plan filed with the city they’re talking about only reference a tower development at the 506-508 site, so don’t get too concerned for now if you’re like, a huge West Sixth bar guy.

Filings associated with the site plan describe a 370,000-square-foot residential building with an above-grade parking garage — some documents also mention a ground-floor commercial space, while others don’t. Either way, we’re looking at a project rising approximately 400 feet or more, with none of the Capitol View Corridor restrictions forcing its neighboring tower at Fifth & West to cut such a dramatic corner.

Since images of the proposed tower aren’t available at the moment, we’ve cooked up some fabulous “green box” massings to show its height relative to the surrounding buildings. The actual tower’s footprint will likely be considerably smaller than this, since the massing only shows the boundaries of its property, but the height of 400 feet is accurate for comparison to its surroundings:

Image: Google Earth / James Rambin

Image: Google Earth / James Rambin

The project’s most current filings indicate the tower expects to participate in the Downtown Density Bonus Program to exceed its site’s current FAR entitlement of 5:1 — and that’s most likely when we’ll get our first glimpse of this new addition to downtown’s west end. There’s no timeline for when exactly that’s going to hit the agenda of the Design Commission, but if you happen to fond of Irene’s or that very pink taqueria next door, now’s probably the time to make some cherished memories.