Texas real estate firm Stonelake Capital Partners submitted an application to the city last summer concerning sidewalks and landscaping for three high-rise buildings — two office towers and one residential — proposed in the South End District of the Domain, part of the North Austin shopping center’s southeast corner that includes properties surrounding IBM Building 45 at 11400 Burnet Road.
There are a number of developers behind projects at the Domain, but this quadrant is mostly under Stonelake’s control. Stonelake leased Building 45 to IBM and since then, has been in the process of developing a circle of mid-rise and high-rise structures around it. Stonelake’s Gallery at Domain Parkside and Edge Apartments, a five-story mixed-use residential complex at 3000 Kramer Lane, opened in 2017. Flatiron|Domain, another high-end residential project by the firm, has been under construction since July 2017 and is expected to be completed by fall 2019.
Since many of the conditions normally reviewed by the city were settled back when the master-planned Domain development was originally created, keeping up with what goes on in Austin’s so-called “second downtown” can be a bit challenging — but here’s what we know so far.
The next project appears to be Domain Office Tower III, one of the three towers mentioned in Stonelake’s summer 2018 application. We say “appears to be,” because state architectural barrier records filed by Beck Architecture in January 2019 estimate construction on Domain Tower III will begin on November 1, 2019. This $80 million project is projected to reach completion on May 31, 2021.
Beck and Boka Powell are the designers on all three towers and no reports have yet been filed with the state regarding the other two. Domain Tower III is described as a speculative office building with a lobby and other amenity features, as well as back-office services located on the ground floor. Levels two to 13 will contain the parking structure, and floors 14 to 24 will be leased space for office use. The entire structure was reported at 700,000 square feet, with the office segment of the tower described as containing a total area of 340,000 square feet.
The residential tower, referred to as Domain Residential I, will have 337 units, each with an average living space of 908 square feet for a total of 384,000 square feet in the building. It is to be located adjacent to Domain Tower III.
In combination, the three towers will have more than 1 million square feet. Domain Tower II, also an office tower, is to be built some distance away — Stonelake marked off a spot between the Wells Fargo branch bank at the intersection of West Braker Lane and Domain Drive; and the 11-story Domain Tower less than a block to the west of it. The new office tower will go up where a surface parking lot exists today.
Tower III and the adjacent residential tower will require encroachment on the IBM campus, since the footprints will occupy what is at present roadway and buffer landscaping. It will also extend Alterra Parkway one block south of where it currently ends. The rights of way around the future Domain Tower II would also have to be reconfigured. The site plans submitted for consideration detail how the rights of way will be changed. In addition, the city required open space plazas and other landscaping improvements.
According to the city’s requirements as stipulated by the Development Services Department, Domain Residential Tower I must “provide a plaza area, with a minimum width of 18 feet and an approximate area of 1,800 square feet at the southeast corner of the building, and 3,5000 square feet at the southwest corner of the building.” For Domain Office Tower III, there must be a plaza of about 4,500 square feet with a minimum width of 18 feet at its southwest corner — and last but not least, the plazas must have public art or street furniture.
