After substantial public engagement and a final engineering report issued back in July, the City of Austin’s Transportation Department has nailed down its plans for a pedestrian bridge crossing Lady Bird Lake near Longhorn Dam in East Austin — and as we’d hoped, the “Wishbone” bridge option presented alongside several others last year is the prize pig, ready to enter…
design
Flying Over Austin in Microsoft’s ‘Photorealistic’ New Simulator
The 2020 edition of Microsoft Flight Simulator, released for Windows last month by developers Asobo Studio, sets a new bar for realism and visual fidelity in the world of simulation software. Providing a 3D representation of the entire planet (and 37,000 airports) using Microsoft’s own satellite imagery and other visuals from Bing Maps, the simulator’s detail is…
The Lost 1980s Dream of a 100-Foot Metal Star Over Sixth Street
East Sixth Street in downtown Austin isn’t always the nicest place to be, but the architectural character and central location of the district has inspired advocates to push for its revitalization in various directions for decades — in the 1970s, the main concern was a lack of retail business in general, while the more modern complaint relates to…
Three Cheers for the Quincy, Topped Out in the Rainey Street District
As we’ve mentioned before, the name of the 30-story apartment and office project currently under construction in the Rainey Street District known as the Quincy has nothing to do with Quincy Jones, John Quincy Adams, or Quincy, Massachusetts — or any local Quincys, for that matter. Instead, its developers at Endeavor Real Estate Group just liked the name, and that’s fine by us….
City Plans Purchase of Two Downtown Blocks for Convention Center Expansion
Later this month, Austin’s City Council is expected to authorize the first steps of an exclusive negotiation agreement with multiple property owners that would result in the city’s purchase of two full adjacent downtown blocks for the planned expansion of the Austin Convention Center, according to documents prepared by the city’s Office of Real Estate Services and…
The Strange, Forgotten Plan for a Floating Casino in Downtown Austin
Depending on how long you’ve been kicking around this rock, you might recall a time not so very long ago when every square inch of downtown Austin wasn’t considered quite as desirable in terms of real estate development potential — and the Rainey Street District, once a sleepy neighborhood home to a working-class population, is perhaps our…