A view of the Browning Hangar across the lake at the edge of the Mueller neighborhood. Image: Mueller
Along with a certain iconic midcentury control tower, the Browning Hangar is one of the only remaining structures in the Mueller neighborhood of Central Austin recalling this 700-acre community’s past as the city’s former municipal airport. Dating back to 1943 and named for local aviator Robert Browning, the structure’s use of glued pine trusses for its arched frame rather than steel due to shortages during World War II made the hangar an unusually attractive work of industrial architecture — after the Robert Mueller Municipal Airport ceased operations in 1999, the city’s redevelopment plan for the site identified the hangar as suitable for recreation by the surrounding community, or as a potential space for a public-facing commercial use.
For more than a decade, the neighborhood has thoroughly enjoyed that first option and given little thought to the possibility of the second — but as Mueller’s master development firm Catellus nears the expiration of its agreement with the city for the neighborhood’s creation at the end of 2024, the long-dormant redevelopment of the Browning Hangar as a commercial space is back on the agenda, with a preliminary briefing on the hangar’s future delivered back in November 2023 to the Mueller development’s city advisory commission from project manager Pam Hefner and Catellus executive vice president Greg Weaver. A restoration project fixed the building’s roof and removed its original rolling doors leaving a more inviting open-air sheltered space back in 2007, and Weaver explained that public demand for access to the site in the years after the restoration eventually led Catellus to leave the hangar unlocked and available for ad hoc use by nearby residents.
Along with its enduring popularity as a playing area for the Francophile pastime of pétanque, the Browning Hangar also served as the home of countless birthday parties, food trucks, and the Texas Farmers’ Market on Sundays from 2007 to 2021. The market’s relocation to Mueller’s new Branch Park Pavilion has Catellus mulling its options for the sale of the hangar site to a commercial operator, and as such we’re now seeing some outcry from locals on the subject — with SaveBrowningHangar.org already up and running, it feels like yet another old-school Austin battle with a hangar standing in for the soul of the city is just getting warmed up over here.
A view of the Browning Hangar in 1999. Image: Legation Boules Club
But according to Weaver, Catellus is hoping to avoid that whole song and dance by seeking historic zoning for the hangar to ensure its stewardship by a future owner, along with placing deed restrictions on any sale of the property to require the structure’s upkeep and continued public accessibility. Weaver says the developer has already turned down offers from buyers who planned to fully privatize the hangar for use as office space, and is now in talks with another possible operator that, ahem, serves coffee and beer, operates primarily outdoors, and has some experience with at least one historic building. After this, Weaver noted that he might have said too much.
A view of the Texas Farmers’ Market at the Browning Hangar, which moved to bigger digs at Mueller’s new Branch Park Pavilion in 2021. Image: Texas Farmers’ Market
He’s right in the sense that you can connect the dots on what this mystery business might be pretty fast if you get out much, but I’ll leave it to your imagination lest we get in trouble for idle speculation. What’s important is whether the new owner of the hangar has any sensitivity to its past as an informal recreational space where people weren’t forced to spend money to enjoy themselves — and if Catellus can lock down someone who understands that delicate balance, the hangar could potentially become a much greater asset to the Mueller community. Doesn’t Austin’s premiere experiment in New Urbanism deserve some sort of beer garden? If that is indeed what’s planned over here, trust us, you’ll be the first to know.
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