South Lamar’s Dead Taco Cabana Rides Again, With a Hotel and Condos on Deck

The 2013 version of the 211 South Lamar project, as seen in this promotional image looking south from the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge. Image: Rhode Partners

Everything old is new again at the southeast corner of South Lamar Boulevard and West Riverside Drive, as a long-delayed project perhaps best known for irritating its neighbors and not being built for years finally springs into action once more.

That’s at least the impression recent city filings give us regarding the 0.93-acre property at 211 South Lamar Boulevard, occupied at the moment only by a shuttered former Taco Cabana restaurant — also briefly a Pollo Tropical, but who cares? If you just got here last week, the site was slated for a 96-foot, 175-unit residential building all the way back in 2013 by California developers Post Investment Group and Dallas firm Ascension Development, with architecture by Rhode Partners.

The Taco Cabana at 211 South Lamar Boulevard, as seen in 2009. Image: Google Maps

In true Austin form, the proposal — which, by the way, never got an official name beyond its address, though its Planned Unit Development agreement with the city was quickly dubbed the “Taco PUD” — met with instant opposition from neighborhood residents, environmental advocates, and even the folks living in the existing Bridges on the Park condos next door, who were concerned their views and sunshine would be blocked by the new building.

A 2013 video by Rhode Partners, exploring that version of the 211 South Lamar project’s design.

Still, even after fighting through various commissions and City Council itself in a process the Austin Business Journal called “unusually bitter, even for Austin,” in October 2013 the project finally received the zoning changes necessary for its height, and construction seemed just around the corner. It wasn’t!

In May 2014, developer Post sold the property to former Major League Baseball pitcher — and Austin local! — Huston Street and his mother, Janie Street, who planned to build the 211 project with no big changes from Post’s already-approved design. The Taco Cabana at the site closed in 2015, and that’s pretty much the last we heard about this development until now. With Street retiring from professional baseball last year, it appears he’s ready to move forward with the project in earnest after six years of limbo.

The former Taco Cabana/Pollo Tropical at 211 South Lamar Boulevard, as seen in 2018. Image: Google Maps

Thanks to recent city filings over the last couple of months, we know the building we’re probably getting doesn’t appear hugely different in appearance from the one we saw in 2013, though there are a few tweaks — enough, in fact, that the new documents discuss some necessary amendments to the project’s 2013 Planned Unit Development agreement sought by the developer. Still, Rhode Partners remains listed as the architect on the new plans.

Left: A northern-facing rendering of the original 2013 design for the 211 building. Right: Architectural illustrations from the 2019 plans for the same site. It’s not really fair to compare a 3D image to a 2D drawing, but they look pretty similar and have the exact same height of 96 feet. Images: Rhode Partners / Consort

The 2019 version of the building is still 96 feet in height, but now instead of 175 residential units, there’s a 107-room hotel in the mix. Considering how many hotels, particularly the boutique variety, that we’ve seen go up around downtown since this project first appeared, it makes sense that Street might want to hop on that action.

The hotel’s joined by 25 condo units, more than 8,500 square feet of retail use, and about 1,000 square feet of office space. Those 25 condos will include 18 two-bedroom units, five three-bedrooms, one four-bedroom, and one five-bedroom unit — probably needless to say, but five-bedroom condos are pretty hard to find in this part of town, making this an interesting addition.

Left: A rendering from the 2013 iteration of the project showing its shape and interior courtyard facing the neighboring residential building and historic Paggi House. Right: The 2019 site plan for the new version of the project appears to have roughly the same design as the 2013 version, though it’s hard to tell exactly how close they are beyond shape and some other details. Images: Rhode Partners / Consort

As part of the project, the historic Paggi House behind this site at 200 Lee Barton Drive will be renovated into an additional 2,500 square feet of offices as well — the building is apparently currently being used as offices for law firm Drenner Group. The backside of the new structure includes a plaza or courtyard area connected by a breezeway to another open space facing West Riverside Drive — you can see all of these features in the 2019 site plan on the right side of the image above. The structure’s parking is now entirely underground, with two levels and 150 spaces provided. 

Architectural drawings from various perspectives of the 211 South Lamar project, as seen in a site plan document dated to March 2019. Image: Consort Engineering

Though there aren’t new renderings of the project at this stage, the drawings of the building from its new site plan look awfully similar to the old building, although it’s completely possible there are some cosmetic changes in store. Either way, the height appears the same as the project’s previous life, meaning its eminent construction might ruffle the same feathers it did in 2013 — on the other hand, maybe we’re getting used to more height on this side of the river? 

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