Committed readers of this blog might recall the 2019 demolition of the widely-disliked Extended Stay America hotel at 600 Guadalupe Street in downtown Austin was the first step toward the development of the Sixth and Guadalupe tower that’s currently the tallest building in the city — and at the risk of looking like we have some kind of beef with this completely…
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Meet Austin’s Top 3 Shopping Centers Begging for the Brodie Oaks Treatment
Last month, we introduced the thought experiment of the Brodie Oaksifyer, a sort of sci-fi laser cannon capable of instantly converting one of Austin’s many sprawled-out shopping centers into a Brodie Oaks-style redevelopment — we’re talking denser and more walkable urban design, new housing, and green space reclaiming underused parking lots, among other perks. Since then, we’ve received hundreds of…
Montage Condo Project Breaks Ground on South Lamar
The Montage condo project by local real estate firm Pearlstone Partners celebrated its official groundbreaking earlier today, bringing approximately 182 new homes to a 1.86-acre property at 2323 South Lamar Boulevard, formerly the site of a used car dealership near Bluebonnet Lane. The building is currently scheduled for completion by the spring of 2025, according to the developers. <span…
South Congress Avenue’s Residential Parking Nightmare Is Almost Over
A new parking strategy set to be implemented in the South Congress area by the Austin Transportation Department could finally dunk the district’s residential permit parking system into the trash where it belongs. Although it’s been in the works for years now, speaking as certified haters of the city’s approach to residential permit parking we really want to…
It’s Time to Brodie Oaksify Austin’s Sprawled-Out Shopping Centers
If you’re not familiar with the plan by local developers Barshop & Oles to reimagine the roughly 37-acre Brodie Oaks shopping center in South Austin, you’d better catch up with our coverage of the subject, since we think it’s a model for how to upgrade struggling retail districts all around Austin. Once you’ve grasped the significance of the project, the rest of this article…
Bouldin Village Trades Height for Affordable Apartments on South Lamar
Bouldin Village, a 375-unit apartment development planned on South Lamar Boulevard near the southern edge of the Zilker neighborhood, is about to become a case study for Austin’s recently updated vertical mixed-use development regulations allowing extra height in exchange for income-restricted affordable homes. Proposed by local real estate firm Narrow Road Group under the guidelines of the so-called VMU2 ordinance passed…