Say ‘Howdy’ to 300 Colorado, Topped Out at 32 Floors in Downtown Austin

Looking at the north-facing side of the 300 Colorado tower, which is topped out and finishing its crown. Photo by James Rambin

As you might imagine, tower news is a little harder to come by these days. Still, a lot of previously-announced buildings in downtown Austin — condos, apartments, offices, and so forth — are making progress here and there. Case in point: 300 Colorado, the 32-story office project by Cousins Properties and local firms Riverside Resources and Ironwood Real Estate located at 300 Colorado Street (Wow!) is finally topped out and largely complete on the exterior, with its crane coming down late last month:

A photo of 300 Colorado’s crane coming down in pieces late last month, submitted by TOWERS.net reader Eric Adams. 

There’s plenty of interior work left to do for its expected occupancy in the first quarter of 2021 by oil and gas outfit Parsley Energy, which signed a lease for 100 percent (358,000 square feet) of the building’s office space back in 2018 — Parsley, for what it’s worth, appears to be weathering the oil market’s recent jitters well enough to still need that lease, though the company has done some recent shuffling around of its office space in Colorado Tower directly across the street from the new building. Don’t forget, there’s also 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail in this project, its whole claim already staked (don’t say it) by Del Frisco’s Grille. I could use an $8 wedge salad.

A view looking south towards the 300 Colorado tower and its neighbors — by the way, that’s the crane for Hanover Republic Square on the far right, with the lovely brick Hotel ZaZa/Gables Republic Square building behind. Photo by James Rambin

Though the building isn’t finished per se, we’re now free to get acquainted with its mostly-finished design by New Haven, Connecticut-based architecture firm Pickard Chilton. This is obviously a simple tower — the critique we often hear for buildings like this in our Facebook comments is “another glass box” — but its exterior materials, namely the enigmatic mirror-like finish of its glass curtain walls and the factory-style dark steel frames around that highly reflective grayish-blue glass, elevate its appearance beyond the simplicity of its massing into something we feel comfortable describing as “striking.”

On the left, you’ve got 300 Colorado. On the right, you’ve got Colorado Tower. Okay, so the left one’s a rendering, but you understand the comparison! Image: Riverside Resources / Pickard Chilton

Take a minute to compare the new structure to Colorado Tower, which stands directly across the street and is almost the same height. You’ll notice the difference — it’s definitely subtle, but to us 300 Colorado has more of a presence. It’s buildings like these that give Austin’s ever-growing skyline muscle, even if they’re not quite as noticeable as the taller projects. As tower fans, we’ll take all of that you got.

Grabbed a daytime long exposure of those picture-perfect clouds moving across the sky yesterday from r/Austin

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