One of our famous green box massings showing the potential height of the new building at this site, assuming the latest rezoning is approved. Keep in mind that this image is roughly accurate to the stated 540-foot height, but not the shape or mass of the new tower — it’s simply following the footprint of the existing building on the property. Image: Google Maps / James Rambin
Last month, we dug into the potential rezoning of the Extended Stay America hotel at 507 South First Street in Austin’s growing South Central Waterfront district, with plans describing a residential tower at this site rising up to 490 feet. This month, an update to that rezoning application filed by local land use firm Armbrust & Brown on behalf of the site’s owners at Broadview Capital is asking for 50 more feet, seeking a total height of 540 feet — or five feet taller than the current redevelopment plans for the nearby Statesman site, if you’re taking notes. Here’s the big ask:
This update would increase the requested height to 540 ft. to allow for the addition of unique architectural elements and a possible viewing deck without increasing the original request for a floor-to-area ratio of 15:1.
— Planned Development Agreement Amendment, 507 South First
Unique architectural elements? A “viewing deck?” That’s all very ambiguous, but it did get us thinking — wouldn’t a publicly-accessible observation deck at the top of a new tower be pretty great? Hear us out. Although it might come as a surprise to some of you old-timers who think Austin’s still a sleepy college town — that hasn’t really been true since around the late 1960s, but let’s not turn over that rock — it’s obvious at this point that our city is an extremely popular tourist destination. It’s a delightful time running into, say, a gang of curious Germans at a downtown bar during Grand Prix weekend, and a polite question you’ll hear a lot from these and other tourists is whether Austin has an observation deck with a good view of our exploding skyline. (Circuit of the Americas has one, of course, but that’s not quite the same.)
With all this skyscraper development, not to mention the natural beauty of the nearby Hill Country, you’d think there would be more rooftop spaces accessible to the public rather than building tenants alone, something like the Edge observation deck at Hudson Yards in New York — maybe we could charge less than $40, but a modest fee for a stunning view and possibly a rooftop bar sounds appropriate. They could charge $10 for Lone Star tallboys and we’d probably still hang out there a lot.
Downtown Austin Needs a Signature Tower, So This Guy Designed One
Keep in mind, that Extended Stay site is uniquely unconstrained by compatibility restrictions due to the lack of nearby single-family homes, so it’s one of the few places where this sort of height is even possible. It’s not really in the city’s financial interest to build or operate a public facility like an observation deck, so if a private developer was willing to offer this kind of space 500-odd feet in the air, it seems like a solid trade for extra height — still, the rezoning case has yet to appear on any city agenda, so we’ll see how much controversy it causes with the Bouldin crowd. That’s assuming the space is genuinely publicly accessible, either as a ticketed observation deck or some kind of rooftop restaurant — if these guys are talking about some kind of private amenity deck that’s open to building residents only, get outta here!
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