As advocates for economic development in Austin, it’s tough to see iconic local businesses struggling with the city’s current growing pains — between sky-high land values, labor shortages due to our festering housing crisis, and a municipal permitting bureaucracy largely unchanged since the 1980s, it takes increasingly deep patience and pockets to keep the lights on. That’s why we’re thrilled…
Erwin Center Demolition Work Could Start Next Month in Downtown Austin
The reveal last month that the University of Texas is pursuing a $2.5 billion partnership with the MD Anderson Cancer Center to construct a cancer treatment and research hub in downtown Austin was fantastic news for the city’s emerging Innovation District — and bad news for the Frank C. Erwin Jr. Center, the infamous drum-shaped concrete arena set to be demolished in the near future…
Southeast Austin’s Oracle Campus Planning Office and Hotel Addition
The sprawling waterfront headquarters of software multinational Oracle Corporation could soon expand once again in Southeast Austin, according to recent city permits. The firm, which opened a large office campus on South Lakeshore Boulevard in 2018 and designated the site as its new corporate headquarters two years later, currently owns approximately 50 acres on the southeast shore of Lady Bird Lake under the terms of a…
Brush Square’s Back in Downtown Austin
The current heat wave hasn’t made it easy to notice, but fences are finally down at Brush Square in downtown Austin. After a year of construction and roughly five years of planning efforts, the first phase of improvements to this longtime downtown public space at 409 East Fifth Street are substantially complete. Although you can go check it out…
See Downtown Austin’s Capitol View Corridors in Eye-Popping 3D
You can’t fully understand the growth of downtown Austin without understanding Capitol View Corridors — the invisible walls protecting views of the State Capitol dome from all over downtown and other parts of the central city. But the only way to really visualize these corridors outside of looking at a big PDF file is by using a custom Google Maps overlay, or a slightly fancier (if outdated) plugin…
Demolition Underway at Avenue Lofts
The Avenue Lofts condo building at 410 East Fifth Street is officially coming down. Demolition is currently underway by construction firm AAR Incorporated this week at the 0.8-acre property at the northeast corner of East Fifth and Trinity Streets, only a bit more than a year after the 2022 buyout of this 38-unit downtown condo community by local developer Wilson Capital. Representatives…