The historic Zilker Cafe concessions stand, a mainstay of Austin’s beloved Barton Springs Pool since the 1960s, completed a long-awaited renovation project this year after closing “in shambles” back in 2016. With this enhanced snack hub expected to reopen soon, the City of Austin hopes to bring the park something new: legal booze. Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department is now seeking…
historic preservation
Help Make Housing Happen at Downtown Austin’s Historic Palm District
The ongoing saga of downtown Austin’s historic Palm School site has found the next gear in the last few months, with the City of Austin announcing a new planning initiative in May for what it’s calling the Palm District — a large and sort of poorly-defined area encompassing the Palm School’s approximately 2.08-acre site, the adjacent Palm Park, the Rainey…
Austin’s Seaholm Waterfront Project Finally Moves Forward Next Week
Can you tell we’re excited about the Seaholm Waterfront project? Our antsy coverage of the city’s plan to adapt the historic 1950s former intake building of the also-former Seaholm Power Plant into a new public space and venue on Lady Bird Lake has followed the project’s various stages of imagination since long before the appearance of a master plan for the space by famed design firm…
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…
It’s Not Looking Good for the Hotel Atop a Historic Building at 15th and Lavaca
The recent purchase of a historic building at the southeast corner of West 15th and Lavaca Streets in downtown Austin by the State Bar of Texas likely indicates the demise of a previously planned hotel tower project at this location. The Bartholomew-Robinson Building at 1415 Lavaca Street, built in the 1880s but most recently serving as office space for…
What’s Next for Downtown Austin’s Finest Midcentury Drive-Thru Bank?
City pre-development filings related to utility location by an unknown applicant could point to a tower development at the site of the midcentury San Jacinto Building at 814 San Jacinto Street, a three-story office structure that first opened as a drive-thru branch of the now-defunct City National Bank in 1966. Though we have no official confirmation of a…