Looking west towards the 1155 apartments from Dawson Road. Image: 1155 Barton Springs / Greystar / Meeks + Partners / TBG Partners
After more than 20 years of false starts, neighborhood opposition, and at least one bankruptcy, one of the longest-planned residential projects in Austin’s history is finally speeding toward a hard-earned finish at 1155 Barton Springs Road.
A current view of the project at the corner of Barton Springs and Dawson Roads. Photo by James Rambin
Perched atop a picturesque hillside at the edge of the Bouldin Creek neighborhood with an impressive view of the downtown skyline just north across the river, this site’s development hasn’t come easy, and that’s putting it lightly — but with national multifamily outfit Greystar Real Estate Partners at the wheel, this 74-unit apartment community could make its previously reported opening date by the end of 2021.
A video showing progress on the 1155 Barton Springs project’s exterior from construction firm Galindo & Boyd Wall Systems, working on the building alongside general contractors Linbeck Group.
The 1155 building reaches a maximum height of eight floors, with its design from Houston studio Meeks + Partners and local landscape architecture firm TBG Partners accommodating the fairly steep grade of its odd hillside location to create a structure far more interesting than the typical “one-plus-five” apartment style we see so often all over Austin.
A rendering of the 1155 project’s pool deck. Image: 1155 Barton Springs / Greystar / Meeks + Partners / TBG Partners
More outdoor amenity space at 1155. Image: 1155 Barton Springs / Greystar / Meeks + Partners / TBG Partners
Though pre-leasing for the community hasn’t kicked off just yet, its site is now live — and it’s there you’ll find an excellent 3D tour of its interior spaces, including two-bedroom and penthouse model units along with various resident amenities like a rooftop lounge taking full advantage of its hillside skyline views. We’ve embedded the whole shebang down below just to save you a click:
A penthouse unit at the building — get a better view in the 3D tour above. Image: 1155 Barton Springs / Greystar / Meeks + Partners
This hillside, located at the southwest corner of Barton Springs and Dawson Roads, hasn’t seen much action for decades outside of serving as an overflow parking lot for El Alma just across the street — but the 1155 property was once home to a swinging club on stilts called Mackedrick’s Treehouse, which opened in 1978 featuring nightly live music and a rate of cocaine consumption that has been anecdotally described to me by former patrons as average by 1970s standards, which is to say quite a lot.
Two 1978 advertisements for Mackedrick’s Treehouse printed in the Austin American-Statesman. Image: Austin History Center.
Despite its popularity in the late ’70s, Mackedrick’s closed in 1983, the building enduring a string of rebrandings as different clubs and music venues and reopening as simply “The Treehouse” in 1985 until a quick 1986 bankruptcy. The space was empty from the end of the 1980s all the way to its 2014 demolition — in expectation of a development that ultimately wouldn’t happen for many more years.
The Treehouse site in 2014, prior to its demolition. Image: Google Maps.
The mediocre success rate of this site as both a business and a real estate development led us to declare it one of the unluckiest addresses in the central city, but with the project seemingly finally making it to the real world — in the midst of a pandemic, no less — it appears we’ll have to reevaluate that ranking and find a new example of local bad luck. 300 Colorado has had a few problems lately.
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