It sounds a little strange to call a 31-story tower project “under the radar,” but for all its prominence, the new Marriott hotel tower rising at the northwest corner of Cesar Chavez and Trinity Streets just across from the Austin Convention Center hasn’t received all that much attention in the news lately. Still, its 613 guest rooms and…
South Austin’s MESA Condos Will Soon Rise Again After Recent Fire
After a fire at its South Austin construction site last month brought the MESA condos nearly back to square one, the project’s dusting itself off and getting back on track. A message issued earlier this week to buyers at the 45-unit, three-story condo development at 4004 Banister Lane by IMPACT Developers states that despite the considerable damage,…
Waller Creek Looked Pretty Bad in 1977
Though we’ve still got a ways to go before the completion of the Waterloo Greenway, the stretch of Waller Creek running through downtown Austin has already come pretty far — the photo above shows the condition of the creek (full of garbage, mostly) in 1977, looking south between East Fifth and East Sixth Streets. Here’s a current…
With Offices on the Way, a Historic East Sixth Street Building Earns Its Face-Lift
If you’ve spent much time drinking big mugs of beer at Easy Tiger’s outdoor patio on the edge of Waller Creek in downtown Austin, you’ll probably have a vague familiarity with the Randerson-Lundell Building directly across the water. A view of the Randerson-Lundell Building’s eastern elevation facing Waller Creek. It’s not the prettiest historic building…
This New Masonic Lodge Tower Design Rules and We Should Build It Yesterday
It hasn’t been a particularly easy road for the developers of a potential tower addition to the Royal Arch Masonic Lodge, a historic 1926 three-story brick building currently standing at the corner of West Seventh and Lavaca Streets in downtown Austin. The city’s Historic Landmark Commission has now postponed its vote on a certificate of appropriateness for the project three…
In 1980, Austin’s Zoning Board Made a 9-Year-Old Tear Down His Clubhouse
Forts and clubhouses, timeless portals to the secret world of kids, stand apart from adult society and its grim concerns of property and propriety — and this usually works out just about fine, at least until those kids get old enough to hide beer inside them. But no age, innocent or otherwise, can save you from suburban residential zoning….