Preservation Austin’s Homes Tour celebrates its 30th anniversary this April, and to mark the occasion the 2023 edition of this flagship fundraising event for Austin’s own historic stewardship nonprofit offers an inside look at historic homes all over town — with 11 properties total, the tour will be a two-day event, with viewings of six homes in Central and…
history
Triangle State Office Complex Prepares for Phase 2, and a Lot More Parking
The 1980s-era John H. Winters state office complex housing the Texas Health and Human Services Commission at the southeast corner of North Lamar Boulevard and West 51st Street in the Central Austin district popularly known as the Triangle received a pretty nice upgrade from the Texas Facilities Commission in 2021, with a new 406,000-square-foot office building by architects Jacobs and…
Downtown Austin’s Next Hotel Takes on Red River’s Most Eligible Parking Lots
Last week, we noted the second possible demolition of an Extended Stay America hotel in the central city to make room for taller growth, but that doesn’t mean the mid-tier extended stay hotel is obsolete in downtown Austin — ha ha, au contraire! City permit filings from this month indicate plans for the development of a 166-room TownePlace Suites…
Hotel Rezoning Could Bring New Height to Austin’s South Central Waterfront
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…
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…
For All of Austin’s Sake, It’s Time To Speak Up on the I-35 Expansion
The expansion of I-35 through the center of Austin has the potential to transform the city, for better or for worse. At the moment, there is no single element of the city’s built environment with a larger impact on the way we navigate the downtown area and beyond — engaging with the highway, whether as a driver or…