Austin Economy/Culture/Growth/Photos/Whatever

[KJHburg]

Good interview with the Austin Business Journal about the impact of Apple's huge announcement on north Austin and Williamson County.  https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2018/12/14/the-ripple-effects-austin-can-expect-from-the.html?ana=e_me_set1&s=newsletter&ed=2018-12-14&u=oAaDx%2B74FoP4qOJ%2By4AU6dhJPpc&t=1544798086&j=85545031

[The ATX]

Here's the site plan for Apple's second Austin campus, and the official site plan will be filed in the very near future.  The plans are for 5K workers in 2021 and up to 15K at build out.  Apple's other campus has 7K workers (6.2K Apple employees and .8K contractors).  Apple also leases a 7-story office building in the West Austin hills that I believe is a chip design facility. 

The City offered no incentives which is part of its new "anti-growth" or "slow growth" strategy which most likely affected the Amazon HQ2 thing.  But the State still plays the incentives game and will be giving a little something to Apple.  This part of Austin is in Williamson Co. (most of Austin is in Travis Co.), and Williamson Co. has an upcoming Commissioner's vote to give some sort of break on property taxes.

Link

 

[KJHburg]

Home prices near the existing Apple campus are higher priced than Austin average and I would look for that to continue maybe even more rapidly

https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2018/12/20/latest-housing-data-portends-more-positive-news-in.html?ana=e_n_set1&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWVROa1pERmhPVE5pWW1RMiIsInQiOiJNaVZUT1RJMFh2MSt6T25cL2lidk1iRHhcL0JUQW9cL2VsRCtDeWp5aE1hbmJVeTZVcm5sbFwvUXU1MXJvRmh2dEtHbkNzUXc5U1RJYmJCRnBIU21jdk9weTNVbVVuN1NVWWRCUGYyRVRIdGdaM0hFOERwdEpaWENIZG9LY2JlaGx3S0gifQ%3D%3D

[Dale]

Aren’t they having to plan a new bus route just to serve Apple ?

[The ATX]

On 12/20/2018 at 12:00 PM, Dale said:

Aren’t they having to plan a new bus route just to serve Apple ?

Parmer Lane (where both Apple campuses are located) is a major thoroughfare, and I would be surprised if it wasn't on a bus line already.  Also, the commuter rail line runs along the edge of Robinson Ranch where the new campus will be built.  If Apple actually care about mass transit, they could have worked out some sort of rail connection.  

[The ATX]

Austin is not all Tech and State/UT jobs.  Progressive insurance is adding 1,000 jobs to their Austin operations.

Statesman Article

[The ATX]

This would be the definition of lipstick on a pig.

Photo Link

[The ATX]

There are a lot of changes coming to these views including the next two new tallests.

Awesome photos by hequals2henry

 

[The ATX]

An Amazon spokesman confirmed in an email to Business Journals that the 25K jobs not going to NYC will be spread among the 17 cities that are currently Amazon Tech Hubs.  Just this week Amazon pre-leased half of an U/C Austin office tower.

Quote

Spokesman Adam Sedo confirmed in an email to the Business Journals that the 25,000 jobs planned for New York will be spread among these cities or metropolitan areas: Atlanta, Austin, Boston, California's Bay Area, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, San Diego, Toronto and Vancouver.

 

[The ATX]

I won't even like this photo in about three years because there will be so many more (and taller) towers up by then.

Link

[The ATX]

Facebook has leased space in the Parmer Innovation Center which will be their third location in Austin.  They have large chunks of space in two downtown office towers that are close to each other as well as two Domain office towers.  The Parmer Innovation Center is home to major corporate IT centers for General Motors and Home Depot.  It is also the new home of 3M's Austin operations.

Austin Business Journal

[The ATX]

The view from the University Of Texas tower looking South:  

Photo Link

[The ATX]

This is an excellent aerial.  It shows how West Campus, the UT Campus, the Capitol Complex and the CBD are all becoming one.

Link

[The ATX]

Here's the 2018 version of the fastest growing large Metros since the 2010 census.

                                                                                                                                             2018                2010             Change

[The ATX]

The City of Austin (and developer partners) is planning to build 135K housing units during the next 8 years to help with affordability issues - 60K of them will be income restricted.  This is in addition to all the homes that would normally be built by developers during that time.  The supply has to increase to keep prices from getting more out of reach for the average family.

Community Impact Article.

[carolinaboy]

On ‎6‎/‎8‎/‎2019 at 8:54 PM, The ATX said:

The City of Austin (and developer partners) is planning to build 135K housing units during the next 8 years to help with affordability issues - 60K of them will be income restricted.  This is in addition to all the homes that would normally be built by developers during that time.  The supply has to increase to keep prices from getting more out of reach for the average family.

Community Impact Article.

Any idea of the cost of this program, ATX? My rough math says 135,000 homes at a (guestimated) cost of $75,000 to construct is over 10 billion dollars. Would the city own the homes and then be responsible for upkeep, etc.? I didn't get much from the article.

[The ATX]

Maybe Austin's MLS stadium should be bigger?  The current plans call for a seating capacity of around 21K.  But on the first day that deposits were accepted for tickets, 30K deposits were put down.  That sets an MLS new franchise record.  The old record was 26K by Atlanta. 

Statesman Article

 

[The ATX]

Here are a couple recent aerials of the ATX,

From Reddit

 

From the west looking east:

Link

[carolinaboy]

ATX,

 

With all the recent center city developments that have been completed, is there a palpable sense of their effects/presence? In other words, can you tell a difference or the influence of these developments? If so, good or bad?

[The ATX]

The bad would be gridlock at downtown intersections during rush hours.  I sometimes have to wait for several light cycles at each of three different intersections to get to my office downtown.  That can take 30 minutes to go three blocks on the worse days.  But outside of traffic it has been mostly positive.  There are many more restaurants and bar choices of ever increasing quality than there used to be along with more retail.  There is also a lot of pedestrian foot traffic by the rapidly increasing number of downtown residents and tourists.  There are four distinct night time clubbing districts that create a lot of night time activity as well.  Another negative is the increase in homeless camping and crime.  The largest night time entertainment district (6th St. & Red River St.) has a huge police presence at night due to an increase in shootings.  I always recommend that night time visitors avoid 6th & Red River.  Go to Rainey St or W. 6th St instead.

[The ATX]

From South Lamar:  

Source

[The ATX]

The Domain is really getting to be a popular alternative to Downtown for Tech companies.  Amazon announced 800 new jobs for their Domain offices six months ago, and this week they announced 600 more jobs.  Amazon's Austin employment numbers seem to vary rather greatly for some reason from around 6K to 10K.  All of Google's corporate jobs are downtown while Amazon's are at the Domain.  Facebook, Indeed and some others like to split their offices between the Domain and downtown.    

[Binbin98]

On 9/16/2019 at 8:34 AM, The ATX said:

From South Lamar:  

Source

I’ve been observing Austin’s growth for awhile in this forum from across the pond here in London, and it is just astonishing where the city has gotten in the past 6-10 years. I would be willing to bet that Austin is or will be the fastest growing city in America, way faster than Nashville or Charlotte, and I say this as an ex-Nashvillian 

[The ATX]

8 hours ago, Binbin98 said:

I’ve been observing Austin’s growth for awhile in this forum from across the pond here in London, and it is just astonishing where the city has gotten in the past 6-10 years. I would be willing to bet that Austin is or will be the fastest growing city in America, way faster than Nashville or Charlotte, and I say this as an ex-Nashvillian 

Austin has been the fastest growing large (1,000,000+ population) Metro every year since the 2010 census.  Here are the top 10 in growth from 2010-2018.  Charlotte is #8 and Nashville is #10:  

                                                                                                                                              2018                 2010           Increase

[dragonfly]

As fast as Austin is growing now, I'm pretty sure that Austin grew 35% between 1980 and 1985 when I was living there, if anyone remembers or can verify that. I think those years inclusive meaning a 6 year period, ending with the recession that forced me to move to Houston for work. Question: I looked around to see if Austin has a 5 star hotel, and could not determine so if you could tell me if one exists or is being built. They just broke ground on Nashville's second 5 star property, a Four Seasons 40 story located across the street from the riverbank.  I will say this about Nashville and it is astonishing, but they have been in the top 5 hotel building metros for several years, in numbers of rooms under construction: https://www.nreionline.com/hotel/eight-busiest-cities-hotel-development/gallery?slide=5.

Edited October 5, 2019 by dragonfly