A view of Paseo’s ground level retail and parking podium. Image: LV Collective / Pappageorge Haymes Partners / TBG Partners
The 48-floor apartment tower planned for a 0.66-acre assembly of properties in the heart of Austin’s fastest-growing entertainment district at 80 Rainey Street has officially secured its financing this week. The development partnership between local firm LV Collective and real estate investors ELV Associates and JE Dunn Capital Partners announced on Wednesday that the project has closed on its construction loan with UMB Bank, and is set to officially break ground in the first quarter of 2023.
That’s all good news, but you might also be interested to learn that the tower has an official name: Paseo. A paseo is a stroll or promenade, and the term’s often used in architecture around here to describe pedestrian walkways or other people-focused outdoor spaces. Since this tower has quite a few of those features in the planned design we’ve seen so far, it’s a fitting name.
A view of the Paseo tower planned for 80 Rainey Street. Image: LV Collective / Pappageorge Haymes Partners / TBG Partners
Alongside its 557 apartment units, the Paseo tower contains a significant number of retail spaces activating its ground level, including the preservation of two existing bungalows previously occupying this collection of properties, which have been moved to one side of the site to play nice with the new tower. That’s the part Austinites should care about even if they never plan to darken the doors of this building, since it’s a model for how to rise on Rainey Street — in fact, it’s the first to rise mid-block on Rainey Street’s main drag — without further reducing the number of historic structures that gave the district its unique charm in the 2000s.
A closer look at the Paseo tower’s ground-level retail and pedestrian features. Image: LV Collective / Pappageorge Haymes Partners / TBG Partners
Since the development team has shared the latest renderings of the plan, we can’t help but notice Paseo has gotten a haircut since its announcement back in 2021, with the seemingly bubble-inspired shade structure at the crown of the building no longer appearing — while we liked the odd charm of this feature, it was probably a little divisive for some. In the end, what’s really important to us is how the tower interacts with Rainey, and it appears from the renderings that all the street-level retail elements we enjoyed back when the project first appeared have survived the planning stage.
Another view of the Paseo tower planned for 80 Rainey Street. Image: LV Collective / Pappageorge Haymes Partners / TBG Partners
Along with LV Collective and its investment partners, the Paseo team includes Chicago-based architects Pappageorge Haymes Partners, general contractors JE Dunn Construction, landscape architects TBG Partners, and engineering firms Wuest Group, Blum Consulting Engineers, and DCI Engineers. With the building now scheduled to deliver in 2025, we’ll look forward to seeing this one break ground soon.
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