An aerial view of the Rainey Street District, with the 62-64 East Avenue location highlighted. Image: Bing Maps / James Rambin
A permit filed with the city earlier this month indicates that local developer Pearlstone Partners is planning to build a 48-story downtown Austin condo tower at 62 East Avenue, located one block east of the rapidly-rising Rainey Street District — and the project would represent the firm’s third tower on East Avenue, joining the Natiivo and Vesper residential projects. The potential tower site is an approximately 0.3-acre assembly of two adjacent tracts from 62 to 64 East Avenue, placing it between other ongoing projects like the River Street Residences and Cambria Hotel.
You might recall that this property popped up as the site of a potential new Rainey-adjacent development all the way back in 2018, when entities connected to local hotelier Kimber Cavendish made moves to build something called the Lady Bird Hotel. That project, rising only three floors with approximately 22 hotel rooms, obviously never made it out of the barn — and with land getting kinda scarce near Rainey Street, it’s not surprising to see a larger building now on the books.
County records indicate the property’s new owner as of last month is the Pearlstone-linked 62-64 East Ave Owner LLC, with this month’s permit outlining the new building filed as a pretty substantial (and significantly taller) revision to the old unbuilt Lady Bird Hotel site plan. All you really need to know is that the development of this site will now take the form of an approximately 245-unit condo tower rising an estimated 528 feet, with an all-glass exterior from frequent Pearlstone architects STG Design and interior work from local designer Kim Lewis. This illustration attached to the site plan revision represents our only glimpse of the tower, but at least it’s something:
Image: STG Design / Pearlstone Partners
Civil engineers Wuest Group and landscape architects dwg. are also mentioned in this latest permit revision, but renderings of the building aren’t yet available. However, the building’s desired floor area ratio of 26.1 to 1 exceeds the 15 to 1 limit of the site’s existing zoning, meaning the project will eventually need to apply for the Downtown Density Bonus Program to score that extra height — so we’re bound to get a much closer look at the tower plan’s design whenever it hits the city’s Design Commission.
Although this tower is clearly in the early stages, it’s only one of several projects by Pearlstone Partners we’ve caught cooking around the downtown area even just in the last year or so — with City Council’s successful modification of the Capitol Dominance Overlay last month, the firm’s tower project planned at 14th and Lavaca Streets could also soon move forward. Take that, U.S. News & World Report!
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