Renderings of the 48 East Avenue residential tower from January of 2017. Photos courtesy of STG Design.
Late last Friday afternoon, the Austin American-Statesman dropped a story covering the 33-story residential tower planned at 48 East Avenue, a .41-acre site currently occupied by a law office. The Austin Business Journal picked it up soon afterward.
TOWERS has been covering 48 East Avenue in detail for several years at this point, complete with a few generations of renderings. Of course, I’m always glad to have another excuse to talk about this tower and its lengthy design process, which has included some revisions I have mixed feelings about.
Here are some looks for the 48 East Avenue tower, all together in one big happy family:
Photos courtesy of Levy Architects / STG Design.
That top image is the original look for the tower shopped around by Levy Architects back in 2013, while the two elevations on the bottom left are from the interesting angled design shown off by STG Design in 2015. The two elevations on the bottom right originate from the revised version of the tower we saw at the beginning of this year, also by STG Design.
It’s interesting that we still don’t know whether the building, estimated to cost roughly $60 million, will contain condos or apartments. At least we know the unit count: 244, according to the most recent city filings.
Really, the only new information I can see in the Statesman exclusive is the admission from developer Robert Lee that the tower’s design still isn’t finalized, and after all the different looks for the building we’ve seen since its first appearance four years ago, this doesn’t really come as a huge surprise.
Details of the design for the tower’s parking structure. Photo courtesy of STG Design.
Still, at this point it’s probably safe to assume the most recent tamer-looking designs are going to come closer to the actual building’s appearance than the more dramatic angled design we saw in 2015. Which is a shame — if we’re gonna sit in traffic on I-35 twice a day, the view should at least be interesting. I certainly wouldn’t venture to call the building’s design ugly, but is “adequate” really the best Austin can do?
If you want my opinion, which you probably don’t, we should paint the thing red like the CNA Center in Chicago. Why? Because it would look cool as hell!
A look at 48 East Avenue in tasteful red, or perhaps gold. I would unironically get pretty excited if a new tower went for something bold like this over another blue glass curtain wall. The gold would have to be pretty shiny, kind of like the 63 Building in Seoul. Yeah, that would rule. Illustration by James Rambin / Photo courtesy of STG Design.
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