Texas real estate firm Presidium Group owns a significant number of properties along the rapidly-developing East Riverside corridor, to put it lightly.
The company’s portfolio includes the roughly six-acre shopping center at 2015 East Riverside Drive, the Element Apartments at 1500 Royal Crest Drive, the Solaris Apartments at 1601 Royal Crest Drive, and the recently-completed Edison Apartments at 4711 East Riverside Drive — and that’s just the beginning. The crown jewel of the firm’s holdings in this area is the 97-acre assembly comprised of five tracts clustered around Wickersham Lane near East Riverside Drive, only one block east of Pleasant Valley Road.
This collection of properties, currently occupied by several locations of the Ballpark Apartments, is the future site of a large mixed-use development formerly known as Project Catalyst, anticipated to bring thousands of new apartments and nearly four million square feet of office space to the site over the next two decades or so. Though an industry source tells us Presidium has recently reached an agreement with a prominent multifamily developer in order to begin the first phase of apartments at this site, no new information has emerged regarding the project for the moment.
Still, Presidium is keeping busy. The firm also owns the 5.6-acre former retail center property at 1600 South Pleasant Valley Road, directly north of the H-E-B at Pleasant Valley Road and East Riverside Drive — only a stone’s throw from both the company’s 97-acre Ballpark assembly and the Oracle campus at Lakeshore Boulevard. In the short term, this site will apparently soon host a “pop-up arts district” created in partnership between Presidium and the Austin Creative Alliance — but a marketing brochure recently prepared by firms Presidium, Hines and CBRE with architectural design by the Austin offices of Gensler demonstrates the longer-term potential of this property, in the form of a 500,000-square-foot office project known only as Riverside in these documents:
Though the building seen here — which appears to rise seven stories on its tallest end — is likely intended simply for marketing purposes at this stage, the development possibilities of the site are clearly on display in the design of this structure. In addition to its office component, the building includes multiple rooftop terraces, more than 34,000 square feet of retail space, and 1,750 spaces of structured parking.
The brochure also includes various maps of the region intended to promote the amenities of the rapidly-growing corridor for potential office tenants:
We’ve currently got no timeline for the development of this site, but it’s obvious that the opening — and rapid expansion — of Oracle’s massive corporate campus nearby has motivated additional office development in the area.
Just cater-corner to Presidium’s 1600 Pleasant Valley site is Riverside Place, a 10.24-acre shopping center anchored by the Joy East Chinese buffet along with 28 other retail outlets. Commercial real estate firm HFF recently placed this property on the market, describing it as “a highly desirable future mixed-use development site” due to its location within the East Riverside Corridor Zoning District (Presidium doesn’t appear to be involved with this property for the moment, but it’s still worth noting).
Though the property won’t be eligible for development for several years, owning to the remaining lease terms of its tenants, there’s a good chance the district’s rapid growth — possibly the fastest in the city at the moment — will eventually transform this site as well.
Last but not least, a project sniffed out by ATX Real Estate News can now move forward, after its rezoning request was approved yesterday by the Austin Planning Commission. Diana Zuniga, founder of development outfit Investors Alliance, successfully sought zoning amendments for multiple addresses on two nearby parcels at Town Lake Circle and Elmont Drive, all of which are occupied by the MESH apartment community.
These apartments, located directly behind the Riverside Place shopping center we mentioned above, are also not far from either the Oracle campus or Presidium’s 1600 Pleasant Valley site. Per the report, the plan is to build a mixed-use building on each site, with the potential for 900 total apartment units between them, along with retail and possibly office space depending on design.
The approved zoning amendment for these properties designates them as part of the Corridor Mixed-Use (CMU) subdistrict of the East Riverside Corridor Regulating Plan, allowing them to participate in the plan’s density bonus and community benefits program. That means these sites will be permitted to build mixed-use structures up to 120 feet in height, or roughly 10 stories — taller than we’ve seen before in this area, and likely a sign of bigger things to come.
