The St. Elmo region of South Austin has been the “next big thing” for nearly a decade. Although the ongoing infusion of residential and creative retail uses into this warehouse-heavy industrial district still has plenty of potential, the whole enterprise got a big bucket of cold water to the face earlier this month with the announcement that the long-awaited
adaptive reuse
Downtown Austin’s Lost Fourth Square Could Serve the Public Once Again
When Edwin Waller drafted the original plan for the City of Austin in 1839, he designated four blocks in the plan’s grid as public squares. Three of those four blocks still exist in the modern-day downtown — Wooldridge Square, Republic Square, and Brush Square. But one block, known as Hamilton Square, is missing. Bound by Ninth, Tenth,…
Austin’s Weirdest Tower Is Officially Under Construction at La Vista de Lopez
“Keep Austin Weird” isn’t a great slogan, since it puts pressure on people who live here to act like they’re extraordinarily quirky and different from people in other cities — and that’s usually much more annoying than weird. But every now and then, Austin sees an authentically very weird thing worth celebrating, and this is…
Downtown Austin’s ‘Lawyer District’ Showing Signs of Life at 10th and West
If you’re a real Towershead, you’re aware of our laser focus on the northwest region of downtown Austin as the next big hotspot for development around here. Upcoming residential tower projects like the Linden, Shoal Cycle,
A 1970s Apartment Building Becomes a Boutique Hotel on South Lamar
A project to renovate a former apartment complex on South Lamar Boulevard into an 84-room boutique hotel is moving forward, according to industry sources connected with the project and a new set of renderings from local architects Chioco Design. The site is a roughly 1.3-acre collection of adjacent addresses at 2121 and 2119 South Lamar Boulevard, currently occupied…
Austin’s Seaholm Intake Building Hasn’t Looked This Clean in Decades
The long-awaited rehabilitation of the Seaholm Power Plant’s former intake structure on the shores of Lady Bird Lake in downtown Austin should complete its first phase early this summer, and if you’ve spent any time around the lake in the last few weeks you might have already noticed that this