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This project is being proposed by the developer of the adjacent three tower Waller Park Place project.  Town Lake Villas is a 1980s condo community that voted to sell their properties to a developer - and they made out pretty well. The tallest proposed tower is 60-stories and will be offices and apartments.  Based on the rendering the second tower will be close to 60-stories and consist of a hotel and condos.  Here's the Statesman article about the project: Statesman

The ground breaking is slated for mid-2017.  But this developer - Sutton - doesn't have a good track record on getting their projects started on schedule.  The Waller Park Place project has been delayed multiple times.  

Here's the only known rendering from the Statesman article.  The future Town Lake Villas towers are the two closest to the river, and the other three are the Waller Park Place towers:   

5hcmkS7.jpg

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  • 2 months later...

The City Council votes this Thursday as to whether or not the restrictive covenant for the Town Lake Villas can be removed.  The removal is needed for this project to go forward.  Anti-growth sentiment is gaining strength in Austin, so any project that requires City Council support is not guaranteed to happen.  The recent cancellation of the two tower One Two East residential project is a recent example of the anti-growth crowd getting City Council support.

Community Impact

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This twinish two tower, 60-storyish project got a big boost forward Thursday when the City Council voted to remove the restrictive covenant that capped residential density on the site.  If the covenant wasn't removed, the developer said the project would go forward as an office and hotel development without a residential component.  But now the residential portion can move forward as well.  As part of the City Council vote in favor of the project the developer had to pay $50K to a nearby condo tower HOA (WHOSE VIEWS WILL BE BLOCKED) for a traffic study because that's what they were concerned about.  Yeah, right.  It's more like my condo tower was here first, so I don't want neighbors.  Traffic absolutely sucks everywhere around here, and I'll tell you that for a lot less than $50K.  Here's an article bout it:  Community Impact.

Here is the condohood that is going to be demolished from the article:  

Villas-town-lake-e1476987035687.jpg?w=12 

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This one is moving forward.  The original developer who doesn't have a very good track record when it comes to big projects has sold the site to a new developer - the Genesis Real Estate Group.  Genesis is based in the Metroplex and has built a few significant projects including One Rincon Hill in San Francisco.  This will still be a two tower project.  The first tower is being called Phase I and will be a 40-story apartment tower.  The second tower will be Phase II and will be developed later based on market conditions.  The original developer had said one of the towers would be 60-stories, and we don't know if that will still be the case.  But at least this one is progressing, and drilling is taking place on site.

newsEngin.19230418_condos-sold-2.jpg        

Statesman Article

 

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Here's the site from TOWERS.  I'm surprised that the town homes haven't been demolished yet since the residents got their money last summer.  I hope the developer is at least renting them out, otherwise it will become a homeless camp if it hasn't turned into one already.

villas-view-1-e1518559024241.jpg

 

Here's a massing from TOWERS.  This project is the taller building on the right.  The massing on the left is 91-93 Red River Residential.

red-river-tower-villas-tower-1.jpg

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This project took a step forward with the filing of a site plan today.  This project appears to be another one - like the Block 71 project - that will be filing two site plans.  The first one will be for demo/site prep and the second one for the tower construction.   The site plan describes this project as condos.  It was previously planned as apartments.

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Site plan info was posted online today at Austin Utilities' FTP site.  This project has gotten better and now consists of two 55-story towers (instead of 40-stories at last update).  The first one being called Phase I is all apartments.  The second one, Phase II, is apartments and hotel.  The height for one of the towers is listed as 695' at one place in the site plan.  But I think that's a typo since both towers are 55-stories and the uses are similar.  The 595' height is probably  the roof line, so a mechanical screen or crown could put the final height around 650' I'm guessing. 

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The city documents that were posted today say construction is planned for 2019 with construction bids going out this October.  This is next to the Waller Park Place project on the the Western edge of the Rainey St. District.  Between this and the Waller Park Place project, there will be five towers lined up single file along Red River St.  The heights will be 595'+, 595'+, 615', 525' & 333'.  

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I think there is the chance that the planned second tower may actually start first.  This means it could be the next new tallest if 600 Guadalupe doesn't get built sooner.  The first tower is rental, and the second tower is condo.  The market for rental towers has a lot of supply coming on line, and there won't be any new condo towers coming on line for at least three years after 2019.  The current crop of  U/C condo towers - Independent, Fifth & West, 70 Rainey, Austin Proper, etc. - will be completed this year or early 2019.  The proposed 48 East project recently announced a switch to condo for this reason.  Also, we should get more specific info about this project in about three weeks as the site plan progresses through the approval process.

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The Austin Business Journal has an article about this project.  The developer is rather vague and all over the place concerning the height and this project in general.  He was the same way in a previous article.  But a site plan was filed for both towers, and the specific height and uses have to be spelled out.  I'm not sure what's up with that.  I'm using the site plan info in the thread title:  Tower #1 is and apartment tower with 55 floors and is 595' while Tower #2 is 55 floors but  taller at 695' because it is condo with a hotel component. 

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The formal site plan filing was added to the site plan application today.  Not much info, but it does confirm that both towers are 55-stories.  Here are the uses:  

Tower #1:  Residential - 950K sq. ft. with 422 rental units

Tower #2:  Residential/Hospitality - 877K sq. ft. with 147 condos and 280 hotel rooms

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The site plan is still going through the approval process, and the 55-story floor counts and the heights listed in the thread title are the best height info we have so far.  But the Statesman ran an article about the healthy state of the downtown Austin housing market, and the developer said a 52-story condo tower would be starting in the 2nd Qtr. with demo of the now empty condos on the site beginning in January.  The second tower has always been planned to start after the first tower is completed.  This should still be around 650' which is a nice height for the Rainey St. District.   

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I changed the tower heights in the thread title to what the elevations show.  Those heights happen to be the lowest heights out of all the conflicting height info.  But two ~600' towers at this location will still be awesome.  There are at least two more ~600' towers planned right by this proposals.  It would be great for the skyline if all four get built.

 

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