After three years of planning and over one year of data-gathering (hey, don’t laugh) from a migrating temporary restroom, the City of Austin is ready to put down roots, with two permanent public restroom installations headed downtown this November and a third on the way by January 2020. Thanks to recent city utility filings and some assistance from…
At Austin Energy’s New Rainey Street Substation, ‘Modern’ Is the Look
The community engagement process for the design of a new downtown electrical substation at 55 East Avenue on the edge of the Rainey Street District has reached a conclusion — of the three themes put to a vote a couple of months ago, Austin Energy announced yesterday that the “modern” design option for screening the facility eventually won out. Here’s…
On Island Time at WatersMark, the Weirdest Austin Condo Tower Never Built
Explosive growth, which would eventually come to define Austin despite storied resistance from its slacker set, really arrived at the dawn of the 1980s. That decade saw the development of a dozen buildings over 15 floors in height in the downtown area alone, and though Austin didn’t experience the stereotypical excess of the era compared to either…
99 Trinity Site Faces Foreclosure
It’s been six years since the announcement of a tower project at 99 Trinity Street in downtown Austin, but landowner WC 1st and Trinity LP has another problem on its hands besides the residential development’s seemingly complete lack of progress — an imminent threat of foreclosure by its lender. Warehouses have occupied the southeast corner…
Yes Indeed, Downtown Austin’s Block 71 Tower Has a New Name
Austin, it appears the office tower currently rising at 200 West Sixth Street has found a new name. Previously known only as Block 71 after its block number from Austin’s original downtown plan, the website for developer Trammell Crow Company, some other recent press releases, and the news coverage resulting from those press releases now all include the name Indeed Tower for the 36-story…
With ‘The Hatchery,’ East Austin’s RBJ Center Heads Back to the Future
The redevelopment of East Austin’s Rebekah Baines Johnson Center, a 1972 housing complex for low-income seniors built on a 17.8-acre tract southeast of downtown, is slowly gaining steam — and the project’s recently-revealed name, “The Hatchery,” evokes the curious history of this property even as it creates a new master-planned community for housing Austin’s future. After a…