The news this week that downtown ping pong bar Smash ATX had permanently closed at the southeast corner of West Fifth and Lavaca Streets didn’t come as a huge surprise to us considering the longstanding plans for a dual-branded Embassy Suites and Tempo by Hilton hotel with a combined 480 rooms in a 30-story tower at this site, but if…
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Austin’s South Central Waterfront District Is Finally Growing Up
In 2016, the City of Austin adopted a planning framework envisioning a more urban and connected development pattern for the roughly 118-acre collection of adjacent properties directly south of the river from downtown, a district freshly dubbed the South Central Waterfront. The South Central Waterfront Vision Framework Plan — you know, the S.C.W.V.F.P. we all know and love! — was the blueprint, as they say,…
Austin, Consider the Bulletin Board
Growing up in Austin, the bulletin board at our neighborhood park was sort of like the early days of social media — you’d find dog-walking gigs, garage sale flyers, and considerably weirder stuff long before anyone was trying to go viral. Most people love this sort of community-minded design feature in the abstract, but the Terminator-like gaze of…
Is This Downtown Austin’s Silliest Parking Lot?
Believe it or not, the flagship Whole Foods at Sixth Street and North Lamar Boulevard was once the center of gravity for much of downtown Austin’s daytime social life — you’d meet friends for brunch there and take visitors from out of town to gawk at the cheese displays. That sounds kind of silly now,…
Sticking a Camera Over the Fence at Duncan Park in Downtown Austin
Duncan Neighborhood Park is rounding the corner on its first phase of upgrades by the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, the most significant improvements planned in decades for this wildly underrated piece of downtown parkland just east of Shoal Creek between West Ninth and 10th Streets. It’s not just the park’s excellent skyline views we’re after — we are very bullish on…
In North Austin, the Lone Star Center Thumbs Its Nose at the Highway
At the southeast corner where Burnet Road passes under Highway 183 in North Austin, an unusual 8.7-acre shopping center sits tucked behind the Highland Lanes bowling alley at 9012 Research Boulevard. Since it’s all connected by an ocean of parking lots, the Lone Star Center strip mall doesn’t look so strange from the ground, but examine the actual bounds of the property…