The 56-story Modern Austin Residences condo tower project celebrated its official “topping out” this week, with the building now reaching its maximum structural height of 658 feet at the northeast corner of Davis and Rainey Streets on the north end of the Rainey Street District in downtown Austin. It’s just one of multiple tower projects currently redefining the skyline of this neighborhood, which already contains…
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What’s Next for East Austin’s Tillery Street Pecan Grove?
For decades, residents of the Govalle neighborhood in East Austin have enjoyed a grove of roughly 75 pecan trees planted in an unusually neat orchard-like grid on undeveloped land at 1129 Tillery Street, the site serving the community as an ad hoc neighborhood park and also supplying a healthy crop of pecans for pies and pralines. The city-owned site…
Fifth and Trinity Hotel Project Could Be Downtown Austin’s Next Groundbreaking
The 13-story hotel planned as part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection brand by local hospitality firm White Lodging could kick off demolition and construction at the southwest corner of East Fifth and Trinity Streets in downtown Austin before the end of the year, according to recent city permit documents, with demolition and site prep work currently scheduled to…
The City’s Long-Awaited St. John Housing Plan Polishes Up Its Park
The long and winding road to the City of Austin’s development of a roughly 19-acre land assembly in the historic St. John neighborhood with mixed-income housing and park space only has a few twists and turns left. You’ll agree that’s good news considering the timeline at play here — the adjacent tracts at 7211 and 7309 North Interstate 35, once respectively occupied by a Home…
Celebrate 48 Years of Conans Pizza in Austin With a Deep-Dish Archive Dive
On July 19, 1976, University of Florida graduates Jerry Strader and Scott Leist opened the first Conans Pizza at 29th and Guadalupe Streets near the University of Texas, instantly winning over pizza-starved students and everyone else with its Chicago-inspired deep-dish pan pies and strangely compelling whole wheat crust. Despite the closure of that original location in 2018, Conans is…
Austin’s Finally Putting Some Teeth in the Downtown Density Bonus Program
At its meeting earlier today, Austin’s City Council passed a resolution initiating a number of potential modifications to the city’s Downtown Density Bonus Program — that’s a set of optional guidelines first established in 2014 allowing developers to build taller and bigger buildings downtown in exchange for meeting various community benefit requirements, like pedestrian-friendly street designs, superior energy efficiency, and affordable housing. The resolution instructs Austin’s…