Austin & Austin Metro Projects Compilation

[The ATX]

A lot of cranes are going up.  We should have more cranes up in 2020 than ever before.  The two for the Travis County Courthouse are going up.  The still U/C Marriott AC & Autograph Collection is at center.  Above that is a West Campus apartment building.  At the far upper right edge of the photo it looks like the crane for the Marriott Moxy is going up.

 

Photo by MBAus

 

The crane pieces that arrived a couple weekends ago ended up being for an office building (1836 San Jacinto) going up at the upper right corner of this photo.  This project (1801 Congress) is still waiting for its crane pieces.

Webcam

 

The first of two cranes for the RiverSouth office tower will be going up soon.  This project will have a great skyline view.

Photo by eskimo33

 

[The ATX]

Both cranes for the Dorsey Apartment tower are scheduled to go up in two weekends.  This project was formerly known as The Huston.

[The ATX]

The MLS stadium is underway in north Austin.  If you look real close on the horizon you can see some downtown towers.  This from the project's webcam.

[The ATX]

Here's a cluster of six tower cranes.  The three in front are for office buildings at the Capitol Complex, two are for the stadium expansion, and the sixth one is just out of view at the left edge and is for a University building.

Webcam

[The ATX]

Development in north Austin is really taking off as an alternative to downtown.  This includes the Domain and Broadmoor developments along with peripheral developments like the MLS stadium and Arena Tower.  Several more towers are planned for the Domain before it's built out, and Broadmoor development is just getting underway.  

The first 300' tower for the Domain was approved last week - Domain III at 24-stories and 330'.  Domain III is part of the Domain South project that includes two more office towers including a second 300'+ office tower and a 19-story residential building.  All four buildings will be going up in backwards L formation around the low rise in this photo.  It looks like site prep has started.

Photo bu AusTxDevelopment

 

The Broadmoor developers have filed permits for 3,000 apartments including what appears to be a residential tower.  They also have three office towers proposals as well with tallest being around 350' with 25-stories.

CBRE

 

 

[carolinaboy]

On ‎9‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 7:36 PM, The ATX said:

The MLS stadium is underway in north Austin.  If you look real close on the horizon you can see some downtown towers.  This from the project's webcam.

I haven't paid much attention to it but was there an effort to locate the stadium in or nearer to downtown? If so, why did that not happen? Seems like a wasted opportunity to bring people downtown.

[The ATX]

14 hours ago, carolinaboy said:

I haven't paid much attention to it but was there an effort to locate the stadium in or nearer to downtown? If so, why did that not happen? Seems like a wasted opportunity to bring people downtown.

There are no undeveloped parcels of land downtown that are big enough for a stadium and not already in the process of being developed.  The team's first two choices were on the periphery of downtown, but the City Council and their NIMBY supporters killed those plans.  The team was barely allowed to build on the site in far north Austin by a 7-5 City Council vote. 

Personally, I feel a downtown stadium would create a huge dead zone - except on a handful of game days.   Stadiums are worse than convention centers for creating dead areas.  Austin does not need a catalyst to get more people downtown, and any real estate big enough for a stadium would be better utilized for multiple residential and hotel towers.  

[The ATX]

Here's the Travis County Courthouse site.  This was taken a couple weeks ago before the second crane went up.

Source

[The ATX]

This was an excellent week for new projects and updates.  There was news and permits for two new towers yesterday.  One is a 600'+ office tower that I will be making a new thread for.  The other is a "mixed  use high-rise" per city documents proposed for the same 6th St. intersection as the new tallest 6 X Guadalupe.  I'll wait until I get official height info before starting a separate thread for that one.

[The ATX]

Site prep has started on two approved hotel projects going up at opposite corners of downtown.  They are not worthy of their own threads, but they fall into that "nice infill" category as well as the "better than what's there now"  grouping.  One is an 18-story Hilton Garden Inn. and the other is a 14-story Fairfield Inn & Suites. 

[The ATX]

This would be the third area of Austin to get a significant high-rise cluster - if the developer gets a zoning change.  This is a very large mixed use project  called Eightfold that is already U/C in far SE Austin.  It's fairly close to the airport , and the FAA may have issues with tall buildings in this area.  The site is a very large former Motorola Semiconductor turned Freescale turned NXP manufacturing site.  NXP still occupies a portion of the site, and Hewlitt Packard has a data center or something in another part of it.  Here's a map of the site from a presentation to the Planning Commission scheduled for next week.  If the zoning change is approved - and it's a big if - the plans include three 400' 28-story buildings and two 17-story buildings.  

Austin Planning Commission

 

[The ATX]

Now that 500' to 600' projects are becoming normal, the visions for future developments are getting taller as well.  There seems to be a project in the works for the low-rise Railyard condo site immediately opposite of the U/C Marriott on the opposite side of the threeish block tract planned for the convention center expansion.   The CC expansion is rendered in the first photo with a green roof.  The site will support two large towers.  Here are some renderings from a previous marketing flyer.  One of the towers is easily a supertall that would surpass the height of the two supertalls in Houston and be the tallest building in Texas.  Based on the other buildings pictured, it would be around 1,100'.  Of course, there have been no permits filed or announcements made indicating anything like this is imminent.  But it's good to see real towers as well as the visions steadily increase in height.

AusTxDevelopment

[The ATX]

There are 10 projects underway downtown that are between 350' and 850', and two more between 500' and 600' that will be breaking ground as soon as the end of the month.   But the cranes are not high enough yet to be easily seen  on the skyline with the exception of the Marriott convention center hotel.  This photo shows the cranes for three of the projects:  Thompson & Tommie Hotels & Residential on the left and the 405 Colorado and 300 Colorado office towers on the right.

Source

[The ATX]

Several new 8-14-story projects were announced or showed up on city permits this week.  I 'm not going to spend much time posting about projects like that because we have so many large projects in the works.  Today we had a site plan filed for an office tower called "Tower 5c".  This could be a big one that will probably be worthy of its own thread.  But I'll hold off on that until we get specific height info added to the filing.  That usually happens 2-4 weeks after a site plan is filed.  "Tower 5c" is in addition to two 600'+ towers announced or had permits filed last week as well as another tower that could also be significant.

[The ATX]

A 330' foot office tower officially broke ground in the Domain yesterday.  It's the first of four towers going up as part of the Domain South End project and will be the tallest tower outside of downtown.  Site prep is under way for the entire project which includes another 300'+ office tower as well as a third one that will be close to 300'.  The fourth tower just got approval and will be a 19-story residential building.  It will be the tallest residential building outside of downtown and the university area. 

Here's a rendering of all four towers.  There are a crap ton of better renderings, but I don't feel like collecting those together for posting at the moment.  That green space in the middle is not there yet.  It's currently the last remaining IBM building left from when the Domain site was a huge IBM manufacturing campus.  

  

Boka Powell

 

[The ATX]

My previous post was about the southern end of the Domain.  But the northern end has been where  most of the high-rise construction has been taking place.  Here's a Chamber of Commerce approved Business Insider article about the Domain Northside and the Tech companies that have been moving in:  Business Insider Article

[KJHburg]

The Charlotte Regional Partnership is going to Austin to see what makes your city tick on their annual inter city visit.  When they post stories about it here in Charlotte I will post them here too. 

[The ATX]

1 hour ago, KJHburg said:

The Charlotte Regional Partnership is going to Austin to see what makes your city tick on their annual inter city visit.  When they post stories about it here in Charlotte I will post them here too. 

Yeah, I read that recently in the Austin Business Journal.  As usual they had a cheesy headline about Charlotte wanting to be weird or something.

[The ATX]

The Railyard condo site sold to Karlin for $104 million.  Based on square footage, it may have been the most expensive land purchase in Texas history.  Karlin envisions two huge towers including one supertall in their marketing flyer.  Let's hope they follow through.

 

[The ATX]

Here are two more Domain office tower proposals - Domain 14 and Domain 15.  There are more than 10 ~15 to 25-story Domain/Broadmoor area towers either U/C or proposed not counting these two.  If this area was the downtown of a mid sized city, that place would be considered a boomtown.  Now murfnut at SSP found a city utility filing for the Domain South End showing that three more residential towers and two more office towers are planned.  This area is booming as much as downtown!

Nelsen Partners

 

Here's the filing showing the additional residential and office towers.

[Dale]

Is the convention expansion likely to proceed ?

[The ATX]

6 hours ago, Dale said:

Is the convention expansion likely to proceed ?

I'd say its 50-50 right now because anti growth folks successfully petitioned to put it on the November ballot.  It gets complicated at that point because the vote is related more to how hotel taxes are spent than building the convention center and the two are related.  There could be lawsuits after the vote.  I'm all for the expansion because the expansion includes some towers and will trigger more hotel construction.  But the recently proposed 613' Block 16 tower would not be built because it is in the expansion's path.  The future Railyard condos site towers are not in the path of the current expansion plans.  

[The ATX]

We now have over 40 towers in Austin between 300' and 850' that are proposed or underway.  It's difficult to comprehend that many towers going up in addition to what has already been built the past few years.

[Dr. B.]

First tower crane is up south of the River.

[The ATX]

Nice.  The second crane is scheduled to go up this coming weekend.