A speculative rendering of the Project Catalyst site from a 2017 marketing video. Photo: JLL Austin
Exactly six months ago, we rolled out what little we knew about Project Catalyst, a massive potential mixed-use project at the intersection of East Riverside Drive and Pleasant Valley Road, basically next door to Oracle’s new Lakeshore campus. Since then, it’s been nothing but radio silence from the usual suspects, including real estate firm JLL and investment outfit Nimes Capital, which owns the various tracts of land in the area assembled for the project.
Over these last six months, whenever I asked anyone with skin in the local real estate development game about this mysterious plan, they were happy to admit that they knew more than they could tell me on the record. The punch line, however, was always the same — keep watching Project Catalyst. Now, I think I understand why.
A view of the Ballpark North Apartments. Project Catalyst, if built, will occupy this area. Image: Ballpark Apartments
This week, we’ve uncovered a series of rezoning applications and other documents associated with the various Nimes-owned properties currently occupied by the Ballpark Apartments, which will eventually be demolished as the individual tracts are assembled into a piece of land roughly 97 acres in size. If you’re having trouble visualizing that, it’s about one-third the size of the entire Domain. Here’s a handy comparison between the two:
Though the name doesn’t appear in these documents, they clearly outline phase one of what was previously called Project Catalyst, a mixed-use development described as an “urban village” and “dense employment node” independent from the downtown area and bolstered by the presence of Oracle next door.
And that’s just the first phase — as implied by some of the promotional material seen in our previous story, additional phases definitely seem possible. Here’s a map of the current tracts seeking rezoning:
The properties listed above all fall within the East Riverside Corridor Zoning District. The developers, through law firm Armbrust & Brown, are seeking to rezone all four tracts to the Corridor Mixed-Use (CMU) designation of the corridor plan, in order to standardize what they can build on the assembled land.
More importantly, this would make the properties eligible for the corridor’s development bonus standards, which grant new projects the right to exceed the zone’s normal required floor-to-area ratios and height limits in exchange for including certain amenities like affordable housing units and publicly-accessible open space.
That’s a lot of words just to say that if the rezoning happens and the project receives the development bonus, this 97-acre tract will be able to build to a maximum height of 160 feet. That’s not ridiculously high or anything — about 10 floors, give or take — but it’s taller than anything else in the area, and would seriously increase the density on this side of town.
A still from a 2017 Project Catalyst promotional video showing a street scene. This is just marketing, mind you, but knowing that possible 160-foot height limit certainly makes the mind wander, doesn’t it? Image: JLL Austin.
Speaking of density, there’s one more thing. In addition to these rezoning documents, we’ve found a Traffic Impact Analysis application filed with the city for the project. To perform this sort of analysis, you’ve got to know how many apartments, offices, stores, hotel rooms, and so on are planned, in order to estimate how much a given development will increase the number of cars on surrounding roads — which means we now know these numbers too.
If built as described in the document, Project Catalyst’s first phase will consist of:
- 4,709 apartment units
- 600 hotel rooms
- 3,987,300 square feet of office space
- 436,250 square feet of general retail space
- 60,000 square feet of medical/dental space
This, as you might have already noticed, is absolutely bonkers. What we’re describing here is a development larger than Plaza Saltillo, larger than whatever shows up at the Statesman site, even larger than the first phase of the Domain that delivered back in 2007. It’s possible that this first salvo simply reflects an optimistic best-case scenario for whatever version of Project Catalyst we end up with — but then again, if the developers are filing these numbers with the city for a traffic analysis, it would stand to reason that they reflect whatever’s actually being planned.
Another still from the 2017 Project Catalyst marketing video. Definitely speculative, but hey! Image: JLL Austin
The expected net total of trips per day listed in the document, by the way, is about 70,000 — seven times the existing traffic generated by the Ballpark Apartments. I’m sure that’s going to be a major point of contention for those who might oppose this rezoning, so the project’s definitely not out of the woods yet. Still, the city’s got plans for improving the East Riverside Drive corridor — confusing, strange, possibly mismanaged plans, but it’s something.
A view of the Ballpark East Apartments currently on the Project Catalyst site. Image: Ballpark Apartments
The affordable housing provided as part of the development bonus requirements could certainly provide an opposing argument in favor of the project, though the developer might avoid this requirement by paying a fee-in-lieu for affordable housing built elsewhere. Additional benefits of the development as described in these documents include the reclamation of up to 9 acres of space previously classified as impervious cover, along with additional connectivity to the Country Club Creek Trail leading into the adjacent parkland.
Still, we’re working with extremely incomplete data here until we get our hands on some actual plans, since looking at the numbers can only get us so far. I guess that means, for now, Project Catalyst remains mysterious — but it’s a little less mysterious than it was six months ago.
78741 Real Estate
-
$499,000
3027 Sunridge DR
Austin, TX -
$399,000
3301 Santa Monica DR #B
Austin, TX -
$235,000
6601 Porter ST
Austin, TX -
$599,000
1805 Briar Hill DR
Austin, TX -
$699,999
1499 Inglewood ST #1
Austin, TX -
$393,000
3301 Santa Monica DR #A
Austin, TX -
$305,000
2001 Parker LN #108
Austin, TX -
$804,990
1201 Shore District DR
Austin, TX -
$564,000
1518 Parker LN #B
Austin, TX -
$184,999
2202 Mission Hill CIR #102
Austin, TX -
$809,900
1318 Tinnin Ford RD
Austin, TX -
$425,000
2101 Montopolis DR #8
Austin, TX -
$224,900
1201 Grove BLVD #601
Austin, TX -
$185,000
1601 Faro DR #602
Austin, TX -
$490,000
1411 Waterloo Shore LN #13
Austin, TX -
$279,000
6609 Cruz ST
Austin, TX -
$450,000
1103 Upland DR
Austin, TX -
$319,888
712 Culp ST
Austin, TX -
$150,000
1840 Burton DR #178
Austin, TX -
$375,000
3502 Catalina DR
Austin, TX -
$200,000
1601 Faro DR #403
Austin, TX -
$275,000
6314 El Mirando ST
Austin, TX -
$315,000
1201 Grove BLVD #1504
Austin, TX -
$350,000
6305 Felix AVE #B
Austin, TX -
$375,000
6305 Felix AVE #A
Austin, TX
-
$499,000Lot Size18,862 sqft
Home Size1,452 sqft
Beds3 Beds
Baths2 Baths
-
$399,000Lot Size8,277 sqft
Home Size1,393 sqft
Beds3 Beds
Baths3 Baths
-
$235,000Lot Size7,493 sqft
Home Size1,458 sqft
Beds3 Beds
Baths2 Baths
-
$599,000Lot Size8,190 sqft
Home Size2,525 sqft
BedsN/A
BathsN/A
-
$699,999Lot SizeN/A
Home Size1,609 sqft
Beds3 Beds
Baths2 Baths
-
$393,000Lot Size8,277 sqft
Home Size1,346 sqft
Beds3 Beds
Baths3 Baths
-
$305,000Lot Size5,358 sqft
Home Size1,227 sqft
Beds2 Beds
Baths2 Baths
-
$804,990Lot Size1,830 sqft
Home Size2,338 sqft
Beds3 Beds
Baths4 Baths
-
$564,000Lot Size10,324 sqft
Home Size1,566 sqft
Beds3 Beds
Baths2 Baths
-
$184,999Lot Size9,322 sqft
Home Size861 sqft
Beds1 Bed
Baths2 Baths
-
$809,900Lot Size1,307 sqft
Home Size2,812 sqft
Beds4 Beds
Baths5 Baths
-
$425,000Lot SizeN/A
Home Size1,548 sqft
Beds3 Beds
Baths3 Baths
-
$224,900Lot Size3,050 sqft
Home Size726 sqft
Beds1 Bed
Baths1 Bath
-
$185,000Lot Size4,749 sqft
Home Size736 sqft
Beds1 Bed
Baths1 Bath
-
$490,000Lot Size2,440 sqft
Home Size1,717 sqft
Beds3 Beds
Baths4 Baths
-
$279,000Lot Size5,881 sqft
Home Size1,400 sqft
Beds3 Beds
Baths1 Bath
-
$450,000Lot Size6,578 sqft
Home Size960 sqft
Beds2 Beds
Baths1 Bath
-
$319,888Lot Size9,671 sqft
Home Size1,420 sqft
Beds4 Beds
Baths1 Bath
-
$150,000Lot Size1,264 sqft
Home Size464 sqft
Beds1 Bed
Baths1 Bath
-
$375,000Lot Size9,409 sqft
Home Size1,680 sqft
BedsN/A
BathsN/A
-
$200,000Lot Size6,186 sqft
Home Size954 sqft
Beds1 Bed
Baths2 Baths
-
$275,000Lot Size7,623 sqft
Home Size768 sqft
Beds2 Beds
Baths1 Bath
-
$315,000Lot Size2,004 sqft
Home Size1,170 sqft
Beds3 Beds
Baths3 Baths
-
$350,000Lot SizeN/A
Home Size884 sqft
Beds2 Beds
Baths3 Baths
-
$375,000Lot SizeN/A
Home Size1,463 sqft
Beds3 Beds
Baths3 Baths
