The Employees Retirement System of Texas isn’t wasting any time adding value to its office property located at 200 East 18th Street, which occupies a full block in the northeastern corner of the Texas Capitol Complex. Alongside the major changes taking place at the nearby Texas Mall section of the Capitol Complex Master Plan, the ERS plans to construct a mixed-use office and retail building on its block, retaining the site’s…
The Tyndall’s On Deck in East Austin
For a long time, I ignored the Tyndall . It just didn’t grab my attention. In fact, for several months I thought this Austin condo project, currently in a late stage of construction at 800 Embassy Drive just east of I-35, was destined to be another straightforward mid-rise apartment building like its neighbors, AMLI Eastside and Eleven by…
A Modest Proposal for Connecting Four Blocks in Downtown Austin
Remember when there weren’t any major Austin condo or office towers west of Guadalupe Street in downtown? It’s kind of quaint to look back on now — I’m not old, but I’m old enough to remember the opposition to the 7Rio condo tower proposal at Seventh and Rio Grande Streets back around 2007, which eventually lost about half…
West 17th Street Hotel Brings Height to Downtown Austin’s Northern Gap
Back in May, we covered plans for a hotel bound for the surface parking lot at the southwest corner of West 17th and Lavaca Streets by HRI Development — a New Orleans real estate firm with an impressive portfolio of apartment, condo, and hotel buildings, but none in Austin until now. Clocking in at 0.2 acres total, it’s a fairly…
Congress Avenue’s Pocket Patio Transformation, Mapped
The annual PARK(ing) Day event creates public space in downtown Austin by converting, for a day, many of Congress Avenue’s street parking spaces into temporary parklets. It’s a fun time, but perhaps more importantly, the event serves as a reminder of how much space we’ve sacrificed to parking in the public realm of our most famous street…
Downtown Austin’s Republic Office Tower Gets a Surprise Height Increase
New documents submitted to the City of Austin’s Design Commission bring us an unexpected, but welcome piece of news — the planned downtown office tower known as The Republic will be significantly taller than we thought. The tower’s new application to the Downtown Density Bonus Program, submitted by developers Lincoln Property Company and Phoenix Property Company as…