Dig the articulation on that parking garage screening! It’s amazing what they’re doing with “metal” these days. Image: Natiivo / STG Design / Pearlstone Partners / Newgard Development Group
Natiivo, the Airbnb-powered “home sharing” concept currently under construction at 48 East Avenue in the Rainey Street District of downtown Austin, received a lot of attention both local and national regarding its unique ownership model after the project’s announcement earlier this year — and at the time of the tower’s groundbreaking ceremony back in August, its developers Pearlstone Partners and the Miami-based Newgard Development Group announced they’d already secured 100 unit reservations for the building, which will have 249 units total.
We assume that reservation number will rise when Natiivo opens its downtown “sales gallery” space, which should happen any day now at the corner of Fourth and Lavaca Streets — the signs are already up, so it’s only a matter of time. Seemingly in preparation for this next step, the building’s developers have connected us with some spiffy new renderings of the tower courtesy of its architects at STG Design:
Conspicuously absent from these renderings? The 44 East Avenue condo tower, which to be fair would block a lot of the Natiivo building from this angle. Image: Natiivo / STG Design / Pearlstone Partners / Newgard Development Group
Fairly visible in the aerial shots seen above and below are the building’s two outdoor amenity spaces — the first is located 10 stories up atop the tower’s parking podium, with the other at the very top on the 33rd floor. Natiivo’s reps inform us the lower terrace clocks in at 6,000 square feet, while the top deck squeezes in 7,000 square feet of swimming pool, deck, and “club room.”
Bam, there’s the sunset money shot — yeah, renderings lie, but this looks pretty good just the same. Image: Natiivo / STG Design / Pearlstone Partners / Newgard Development Group
While you’re enjoying the pretty pictures, it might be good to run back through the Natiivo business model real quick in case you’ve forgotten. In a nutshell, it’s built like a hotel, but as an investor you can buy an individual unit in that hotel and rent it out to guests on Airbnb, with the building’s management taking a cut of your profits in exchange for managing that unit — we explain the model in further detail in our previous coverage, but that’s basically the gist.
The brass at Pearlstone and Newgard say this approach opens the project to different categories of investors, particularly people who might not have the capital or time to purchase and manage a traditional standalone investment property for short-term rentals — and even if your profits are comparatively smaller after the management takes its cut, there’s definitely a place in the market for a “set it and forget it” investment you don’t have to clean yourself after every guest.
A view of the Natiivo building’s ground floor facing East Avenue. Image: Natiivo / STG Design / Pearlstone Partners / Newgard Development Group
Since its groundbreaking two months ago, the building’s made some real progress — according to its developers, the piles of its foundation will be finished by mid-month, with overall completion targeted for 2021. That date sounds straight out of science fiction, doesn’t it? We’re not getting any younger, man.
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