The new 20-acre Midtown Commons broke ground this week; it will be Phase I of Crestview Station, Austin's first privately built transit-oriented development. As such, the "new urban village" designed around a transit stop offers a picture of Austin's desired land-use future.
Austin Business Journal
The University of Texas System Board of Regents has officially hired Cooper Robertson & Partners LLP, a New York city master planning firm, to develop plans for the Brackenridge Tract.
The contract, which could exceed $5.1 million, was signed on April 21 by Cooper and the UT System.
At a special meeting on March 26, the board unanimously voted to select Cooper as its preferred master planner.
The regents want Cooper to create two conceptual master plans for the approximately 350-acre tract on Lady Bird Lake. The UT System hopes to utilize the tract in way that will create funding for academic programs and student services.
Cooper has said it expects to complete the master plans as early as spring 2009.
Cooper, which was founded in 1979, has worked on a number of high-profile projects for clients such as Disney Development Co., Harvard University, MIT and Yale University.
At the March meeting, Cooper said it would recuse itself from developing any future projects on the tract.
The Brackenridge tract is home to student housing, a biological field lab, the city-operated Lions Municipal Golf Course and other commercial and retail tenants. Golfers have launched a campaign to save the golf course. And West Austin residents have expressed concern that development could be disruptive to the neighborhood.
Cooper has said its first order of business is to gather community input.
These city of Austin projects are either ongoing or in development:
1) Jollyville Road/Loop 360
Construction of a shared-use bike and pedestrian path to allow for travel from Jollyville Road, across Loop 360, to the Arboretum area.
2) South Lamar/U.S. 290
Construction of Americans With Disabilities Act-compliant sidewalks and bike lanes connecting South Lamar, across U.S. 290, to West Gate Boulevard.
3) Montopolis
Link the Lance Armstrong Bikeway to a bike and ped path connecting the Montopolis Youth Sports Complex and the Colorado River State Park, via the U.S. 183 truss bridge.
4) Upper Boggy Creek Trail
Extend the trail from East 12th north to I-35 and the Hancock Center.
5) Pleasant Valley Road, Phase II
Create a route from the Lady Bird Lake Hike and Bike Trail at Lakeshore Boulevard south to Burleson Road. Consists of a mixed-use, off-road path from Oltorf to Burleson. Phase I, adding bike lanes from Lakeshore to Oltorf, has been completed.
6) Austin to Manor Rail With Trail
A 4.5-mile trail in the Capital Metro right-of-way from Daffon Lane to the city of Manor. $2 million has been budgeted for a preliminary engineering and enviro study for the extent of the trail. The rest of the trail will be completed when funding becomes available.
7) North Acres
Construction of a mixed-use trail, including a bridge across Little Walnut Creek, connecting Park Plaza and Furness Drive.
8) Lance Armstrong Bikeway
With parts of the bikeway already completed, the ultimate product will feature an east-west crosstown bikeway from Veterans Way at Lake Austin Boulevard to the U.S. 183 truss bridge. Cyclists have questioned why this project has taken so long to complete and point out that the I-35 crossover is still a danger zone.
9) Lake Austin Boulevard
Improve bicycle lanes from Exposition Boulevard to Red Bud Trail, with curb construction along the north side.
10) Barton Springs Road
Install bike lanes from Robert E. Lee Road to Rollingwood Drive.
11) MoPac
Build a "hanging bridge" over Barton Creek, south of Loop 360.
12-17) Other
Bike lanes and other improvements are also planned for Steck, Garden Villa, Bannister Lane, Latta Drive, Lakeshore, and South Congress.
(drop) Commuter Showers
A $340,000 federal grant, with matching city dollars, will go toward construction of showers and lockers at five city-owned sites.
Source: City of Austin
he first phase of a unique new Austin development near Lamar and Airport Boulevard is underway. Groundbreaking ceremonies were Tuesday morning in the first phase of the Crestview Station project -- Austin's first mixed-use development that will go up adjacent to the Crestview Station commuter rail stop in North Austin. This is Austin's first transit-oriented mixed-use development, featuring a combination of office, retail and residential living. "The way we're doing things now is not only pretty places we don't love, but it's also breaking our banks, and so we now have a third way, and it's kind of getting back to way we used to do it, but it's using modern market economics," said Brewster McCracken, Austin City Council member. More than 1,500 multi-family apartment homes with extensive amenities will eventually go up at the site 
(AUSTIN, TX) -- The Austin Museum of Art (AMOA) unveiled a rendering for the new downtown Museum facility and multi-purpose co-development that will be built on the block it owns at Fourth and Guadalupe Streets today. Additionally, a lead gift of $3 million from Bettye H. and William C. Nowlin for this phase of the institution’s capital campaign was announced. The new Museum building will be developed in partnership with international developer Hines and acclaimed architectural firm Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects.
“We’ve chosen to make this additional gift to AMOA, the largest gift we’ve made to any capital campaign, because this project is affordable, achievable, and what’s right for Austin right now,” said Bettye Nowlin, whose decade of philanthropic support for Austin civic and cultural organizations include service as the current president of the AMOA Board of Trustees. “This truly will be Austin’s Museum of Art, featuring the work of local, regional, and national artists and reflecting the diversity and vitality of the area presented in a way that’s uniquely Austin.”
AMOA anticipates a campaign of approximately $23 million to cover hard and soft construction costs, transition expenses, and an increase of $2 million to the operating endowment. Funds already committed for the new project total 60 percent of the goal, and are comprised of donations remaining from the previous campaigns, the sale of the land, the Nowlin’s lead gift, and several anonymous gifts, leaving just over $9 million for AMOA to reach their goal.
“We’ve spent the past five years strengthening our organization, building our audiences, and broadening our base of support in order to strategically position ourselves to succeed with this carefully-planned step forward,” explained Dana Friis-Hansen, AMOA’s Executive Director. “We’re proud of what we’ve achieved downtown in our current facility—great exhibitions with established and emerging artists, the permanent FamilyLab, and innovative education programs for schoolchildren, families and adults—but a larger purpose-built facility will allow us to do so much more.”
The new downtown facility will feature a three-story 40,000-square foot space at Fourth and Guadalupe Streets more than doubling the exhibition and education spaces from the Museum’s present location. This will enable the Museum to increase the size, frequency, and variety of art on view, and expand educational programs.
The currently undeveloped block just south of Republic Square will also be home to Museum Tower, a 30-story, 425,000-square-foot office building that will be the first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified office project in downtown Austin. Both the museum and the tower will be designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects of New Haven, CT, and developed by Hines, the international real estate firm. The Museum’s owner’s representative will be David Stauch, President and Founder of Herndon, Stauch & Associates, an Austin firm specializing in project and construction management. Bart Matheney of Aquila Commercial will be the exclusive leasing agent for Museum Tower.
The lead architect at Pelli Clarke Pelli echoed Nowlin’s assessment. “Austin is a city very close to our hearts,” said senior principal Fred Clarke, a graduate of the UT-Austin School of Architecture. “We have seen it become one of the most vibrant and successful communities in the country. Designing the museum, one of the most progressive programs in the country, as well as designing a new tower for the premier developer in Texas makes this one of the most significant commissions in the city.”Hines has operated in Austin since the mid-1970s, when it developed one of the city’s first modern office buildings, the Bank of America Tower located at Fifth and Congress. The firm owns and manages 301 Congress, which is four blocks from the new museum site, and has developed office and civic projects around the globe, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Audrey Jones Beck Building designed by Rafael Moneo. Hines recently announced plans to develop a Jean Nouvel-designed mixed-use tower in midtown Manhattan adjacent to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) that will include a 50,000-square-foot expansion of the museum’s galleries. The Hines and Pelli Clarke Pelli team was recently selected to develop the Transbay Transit Center and Tower in San Francisco. In addition, the two firms are working together on a major mixed-use project at Boston’s historic South Station.
“Environmental sensitivity and energy efficiency have been distinguishing features of our projects for decades, and we are looking forward to developing the first LEED-certified office building in downtown Austin,” said Hines Vice President Travis Overall. “We are very pleased to partner with AMOA in bringing two important projects to the last undeveloped block in this area of the CBD.”
The new development will add to the strength of the civic and cultural district emerging around Republic Square, including Austin’s City Hall, Ballet Austin Dance Education Center, renovated Austin Music Hall, the growing retail and residential activity along Second Street, and planned Austin City Limits Studio, and future federal courthouse.
“Strong cultural institutions like the Austin Museum of Art provide the backbone for vibrant urban centers,” said Austin Mayor Will Wynn. “The permanent downtown location for AMOA will be one of downtown’s cultural jewels, transforming a surface parking lot into a 21st century museum and a LEED-certified office tower while continuing to build the city’s tax base and bring life to our urban core.”
Development will include apartments, stores
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Whole Foods Market plans to build a store between downtown and River Oaks as part of a 13-acre development that will include apartments and shops.
The Austin-based natural and organic grocery chain will lease the northeast corner of West Dallas and Waugh from the Finger Cos., the firms said Tuesday.
Alongside the market, the Houston-based developer is preparing to build a six-story, 445-unit apartment complex on the property. Construction will start early next year.
"It's a great intersection," president and CEO Marvy Finger said. "It's very exciting."
Plans for the site, along West Dallas between Montrose and Waugh, call for additional retail space and possibly a high-rise residential tower.
Real estate in this area, as well as the corridors running along Memorial Drive, Allen Parkway and Washington Avenue, has been transitioning as older properties are redeveloped and vacant parcels filled in.
The Allen House Apartments have been cleared as the owner prepares to build a compact urban-style development of shops, restaurants, offices and residential units there.
And a historic warehouse on Allen Parkway and Montrose was demolished after the property was sold more than a year ago to the Aga Khan Foundation for a Muslim Ismaili center.
There were almost 30 offers for the 688-unit Bayou Park apartment complex on Memorial at Shepherd after it went on the block, according to brokerage firm Apartment Realty Advisors, which marketed the property, anticipating redevelopment of the 15-acre site.
Boston-based multifamily management investment firm Berkshire Property Advisors acquired it.
Area land prices are more than $100 per square foot, according to David Cook of real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield.
"Even if Whole Foods hadn't happened, it's a great location with its proximity to downtown and River Oaks," said Cook, who represented the owner that sold Finger the land for the grocery store and apartments earlier this year.
Though Whole Foods operates another store nearby at West Alabama and Kirby, Westheimer or San Felipe could divide the trade areas, with customers who live to the south shopping at the Kirby store and those on the north supporting the West Dallas location, Shillings said.
At 50,000 square feet, the new market is planned to be larger than the average store size of about 38,000 square feet.
"Since we continue to evolve and experiment, this store will have new features existing stores don't have by the time it opens," spokeswoman Kate Lowery said.
The company hasn't set an opening date.
It announced the new Houston lease during an earnings call Tuesday, in which it said net income in the recently completed quarter fell to $40 million, or 29 cents a share, from $46 million, or 32 cents a share, a year earlier.
Revenue for the quarter rose 28 percent to $1.87 billion.
Austin Business Journal
A groundbreaking ceremony will be held next Tuesday for Midtown Commons, the 73-acre, mixed-use development that will go up adjacent to the Crestview Station commuter rail stop in Central Austin.
High Street Residential, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Trammell Crow Co., is developing the transit-oriented development that will marry retail, residential and office space.
The first phase of the project surrounding the actual transit station will feature 316 apartments, 30,300 square feet of retail and 30,300 square feet of office and should be delivered in February 2009.
Lance Sallis, managing director of Trammell Crow's Austin office, says the company is pleased to begin construction on the long-awaited project at the intersection of Lamar Boulevard and
Airport Boulevard.
"This TOD project addresses mobility issues through smart growth and proximity to public transportation while enhancing the economic development of the area," says Sallis.
USAA Real Estate Co. is Trammell Crow's equity partner on the project.
Trammell Crow Co. is a wholly-owned and independently operated division of CB Richard Ellis Inc. (NYSE:CBRE).
Austin Business Journal
A ceremonial groundbreaking was held today for the 270-unit BartonPlace condo project on Barton Springs Road.
Constructive Ventures, the Austin-based group behind such developments as The Pedernales, 2124 and Saltillo Lofts, is developing BartonPlace in conjunction with local restaurateur Rick Engel. The project is going up near Engel's Austin Java restaurant on Barton Springs.
Construction on the project designed by Dallas-based Boka Powell is expected to take 18 to 22 months.
Perry Lorenz, one of the partners of Constructive Ventures, says the company has already collected $45 million in non-refundable earnest money contracts for units in the development.
"Our robust pre-construction sales show clearly that the condominium market in Austin remains very strong," says Lorenz. "The bottom line is that this is a great location in a solid market, and our team has the proven ability to deliver a unique, high-quality product here. BartonPlace will be a distinctively cool new Austin address."
Lorenz said the development team also altered their initial plans to comply with Austin's Town Lake Overlay and Neighborhood Compatibility Standard. "We worked hard for a very long time to make sure that we earned the support of the nearby neighborhoods and businesses - that we were building a community here that would be viewed as a positive addition to the area," says Lorenz. "It took almost two years to create a project that everyone could support, but we did it, and we're very proud of it."
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