It’s been four years since our mildly controversial assertion that a new downtown residential tower could soon rise at 506 and 508 West Avenue, adjacent tracts currently occupied by restaurants Irene’s and Taquero Mucho — and although nothing’s broken ground yet at this 0.57-acre land assembly, it’s become increasingly clear that a tower plan is moving forward at this site. Notification letters…
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90 Feet of Housing in Old West Austin Sounds Like a Good Start
At its meeting earlier this week, the City of Austin’s Planning Commission voted to postpone a rezoning item on its agenda for further discussion next month, allowing the applicant further time to discuss the case with the neighborhood in question — Old West Austin, a part of town not known for its intensity of growth compared to almost…
Admiring the Curves at Gensler’s Stunning Whole Foods Office Project
It’s not often that a low-rise building stops us in our tracks, but here goes nothing — the five-story office project designed by Gensler Austin as an expansion for the corporate headquarters of Whole Foods, now sitting in a late stage of construction at the corner of West Fifth and Bowie Streets, is shaping up to be one…
Pease Park’s $15 Million Kingsbury Commons Project Opens Next Month
Donated to the City of Austin in 1875 by Texas Governor Elisha M. Pease, the 84-acre Pease Park is Austin’s oldest civic green space outside of the downtown public squares laid out in the city’s original plan, and next month the facility will debut its most significant upgrade since the park’s first major improvements nearly a century ago. Known as Kingsbury Commons, the project…
Colorfield Condos Break Ground at Castle Hill’s Former Graffiti Gallery
A 10-unit condo community in the Castle Hill district directly west of downtown Austin and adjacent to the Clarksville neighborhood has officially broken ground on the site of the city’s well-known and now-relocated outdoor graffiti gallery, formally known since 2011 as the HOPE Outdoor Gallery. The Colorfield condos will occupy the hillside at 1012 Baylor Street, a 1.2-acre property which famously…
The Forgotten Midcentury Dream of Gondolas Over Lake Austin
Austin’s best-known architectural duo Fehr & Granger are remembered locally for the classic midcentury designs they brought to the city, with iconic buildings like the whimsical control tower and terminal of the former Mueller Airport. But this famed partnership of modernists also worked on a few projects that didn’t pan out, and we often find that unbuilt plans contain some of the…