New Bike Bridge on MoPac

It's a first of its kind in Texas: a hanging bicycle bridge, planned for a busy stretch of MoPac in Southwest Austin, where cyclists have to fight for room to ride.

The hanging bridge is planned for a section of MoPac, just south of Capital of Texas Highway. Right now cyclists looking to cross the greenbelt there must ride on MoPac, just feet away from traffic. There's practically no other way around.

"I've actually been pulled over by a police officer" on that stretch of road, says cyclist Steve Guzman, who's been riding for 18 years. "He didn't want to scrape me up off the pavement. I could see his point."

There is no shoulder on the northbound side, and it's a tight squeeze going south.

"I've seen 60 [cyclists] trying to jam into one small space, entering the bridge, and we'll easily overflow into the traffic lane," says Guzman.

But that won't happen after the construction of a 12-foot wide bridge, "similar to maybe the First Street bridge over [Ladybird Lake], how it's a little bit lower than the main lanes, with the idea that it will be supported from the main bridge," says Annick Beaudet with the City of Austin.

A hanging bridge may cut MoPac congestion by spiking the number of bicycle commuters.

"It's going to give a lot of people the opportunity to commute right into Downtown Austin, because this is a great way to get there," says Sara Krause, who chairs the city's task force on bike safety. "If you had a safe route, you could do it."

"I think it's going to be a welcome addition," says Guzman.

The bridge is now in the design phase and will cost $3.5 million, most of that coming from public funding, such as bonds. Friday morning some local businesses will make contributions toward the rest of the cost. The bridge is expected to go up in 2011.

The city of Austin is working on another project to benefit cyclists. This year, the city will add bicycle lanes on Barton Springs Road, from Robert E. Lee to MoPac.

New Hotel Rise Across Street From Driskill

Austin developer Tom Stacy has revised plans for his mixed-use project at Congress Avenue and Fifth Street downtown, with the latest incarnation featuring two towers, including a 66-story hotel/condominium that would be the skyline's tallest.

Stacy doesn't have a time frame for starting the hotel/condo tower or a 32- to 33-story office/retail tower.

But Stacy says the office tower would probably come first, with construction possibly starting in late 2009 and the building opening in late 2011 or early 2012.

In addition, Stacy and his financial partner, Walton Street Capital, have hired Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LP to help recruit a national developer to partner with them.

Stacy said he changed course because he and Walton Street now own the entire block bounded by Congress, Fifth, Sixth and Brazos streets.

In May 2007, Stacy and Walton bought most of the land beneath Littlefield Mall at Sixth and Brazos, though not the improvements.

Then in December, Stacy and Walton bought the remaining Littlefield land, as well as the buildings.

"That's what enables us to replan the project and split the uses into two towers," Stacy said.

Both towers would sit atop an eight-story parking garage. Stacy also hopes to start building a nearby 1,200-space garage in June.

Stacy said the condo/hotel would have 300 hotel rooms and 200 condominium units in a tower rising 820 feet.

The office tower would be built where a four-story Bank of America annex now sits and would be about 420 feet, taller than the adjacent 26-story Bank of America tower on the block.

The new towers would be connected through the shared parking garage. When Stacy originally announced his plans in December 2004, he envisioned a single 57-story tower with a mix of uses. Later, he simplified the plan, eliminating a hotel and apartments and concentrating on an office, retail and condominium project.

The architectural firm of Pelli Clarke Pelli is designing the new project, Stacy said.

Stacy put the project's price tag at $500 million, which includes his purchase of the existing Bank of America tower. The new towers would total about 1.1 million square feet of space.

"We're trying to be very careful and thoughtful how we develop this block because it truly is a gem of Austin," Stacy said.

The new plan improves Stacy's chances of pulling off the project, said Charles Heimsath, a real estate consultant who has worked with Stacy.

"If you're able to parse off individual land uses in a large mixed-use project, then it gives those individual land uses a higher probability of getting started," Heimsath said

Bob Albanese, Stacy's former construction manager, said, "Tom's sitting on a perfect piece of property. Now he's got a chance to do a ... landmark project in downtown Austin."

We getting a Hong Kong Supermarket!

Groundbreaking held for Northeast Austin retail development, ViNa Plaza

What: ViNa Plaza, a 200,000-square-foot retail development.

Where: Corner of East Parmer Lane and Harris Ridge Boulevard, a rapidly growing area one mile east of Interstate 35 and close to Dell and Samsung Semiconductor campuses.

Who: Kevin Nguyen of Ly and Nguyen LLC is the developer. Francisco Choi of FTC Architects is the architect.

When: Groundbreaking was this week.

Details: Hong Kong Supermarket will be the anchor for the 19-acre development. The main retail arcade will have four two-story buildings connected by a large pedestrian rotunda. The area is served by a Capital Metro bus line.

Development begins on Four Seasons tower

Construction began Monday February 4th on the long-awaited 32-story Four Seasons condo tower.
The project adjacent to the Four Seasons Hotel on Lady Bird Lake will feature 166 condos ranging in price from $400,000 to $4 million.
The 400,000-square-foot building, designed by architect Michael Graves, will include amenities such as a rooftop pool, fitness center overlooking the lake and a resident library as well as 9,000 square feet of ground-floor retail.
Austin developer Ardent Residential and Atlanta-based Post Properties Inc. are developing the Four Seasons Residences jointly.
The condo project, originally plotted in 2001, was delayed after the tech bust stymied the local economy. Downtown's most recent development wave revived the Four Seasons project and gave birth to a series of other high-end condo towers, including the 56-story Austonian at Second Street and Congress Avenue and the 35-story W Hotel & Residences on Second Street across from City Hall.

Proposed studio's developers want out of Austin's ETJ

Developers say city must agree soon or Villa Muse project, planned for southeast Travis County, will go elsewhere.

Concerned about Austin's taxes and time-consuming development approval process, the backers of a proposed film, television, gaming and sound studio in southeast Travis County are asking the city to release their 1,100-acre property from Austin's future growth zone.

If that happened, Austin would give up all regulatory control over the development of the Villa Muse Studios and the adjacent residential and office development and surrender the right to collect property and sales tax in a large swath of its desired development zone near the new Texas 130 toll road.

Villa Muse's development team says the city has nothing to lose and everything to gain from releasing the flood-prone land and signing a non-annexation agreement that would likely last decades because the land isn't likely to be developed by anyone else.

"The vast majority of the jobs created and the economic benefits are going to be outside the boundaries of Villa Muse," said Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, vice president of strategic development for the project. "Austin is going to benefit more than anybody from what we're doing."

Located in Austin's five-mile growth boundary outside the city limits, also known as the extra-territorial jurisdiction, the Villa Muse property is currently subject to the regulatory authority of both Austin and Travis County.

The developers argue that Austin's cumbersome approval and permitting process would take too long to get the studio up and running by the end of 2009, which they need to do because of growing competition in the industry.

They want to build under only Travis County's less-rigorous approval process, which it also wants to customize and shorten for the project.

In Texas, cities have far more regulatory authority than counties.

Approval at Travis County generally takes 6 to 9 months for large projects of more than 1,000 acres, mainly because developers only need approval for the subdivision plats — which divide property into lots and lay out where the roads will go — while projects that require city approval must also specify lot sizes, street designs, land use and water quality controls. Commercial projects also acquire additional permits in the city. Approval time for the entire city process is roughly 12 to 18 months, according to real estate attorney David Armbrust.

Austin City Council members heard a Nov. 8 presentation from the developers that was held in executive session because the council was getting legal advice related to the request for the release of the land from the city's jurisdiction. Several members enthusiastically support the project but are reluctant to agree to the request.

"We have a stated policy for releasing folks from the ETJ, and this doesn't meet that criteria," said Council Member Mike Martinez.

"They need to come to the table with an offer that is mutually beneficial," he added. "Simply providing jobs and a studio isn't (enough)."

Villa Muse would be anchored by a 200-acre studio that would include production and post-production facilities surrounded by more than 1 million square feet of office space and high-end housing for up to 9,000 people.

The project's backers say the studio would help Austin compete in the entertainment industry by attracting a larger pool of creative talent and accommodating larger productions than those using the city's current facilities. It would also offer studios, producers and others everything they need to create and complete a new project in one place, which is a growing trend.

The developer's consultant, the Perryman Group, estimates the studio could create anywhere from 40,000 to nearly 110,000 jobs in Austin and generate between $6.5 billion and $20.2 billion in local spending each year. Competition among major studios is escalating.

In recent years, major studios have been built around the world in places such as South Africa, Australia, Canada and Spain. Late last year, the well-established Pinewood Studios Group in London announced that it would double in size within two years and incorporate a large residential component, much like Villa Muse.

Closer to home, the $74 million Albuquerque Studios opened in New Mexico last year with six soundstages on 28 acres. It's set to expand this year.

Approximately 80 percent of the Villa Muse site is in a floodplain. The developers plan to spend $8.6 million to reclaim the land, using dirt from 800 acres adjacent to the property that is owned by the sand and gravel company Travis Aggregates. The Villa Muse developers also want the city to release that property, which it might eventually buy, from its ETJ.

The developers estimate it will take $300 million to build roads, parks, hike and bike trails, a wastewater treatment plant and water lines as well as planned community centers, an auditorium and schools. They project it will take another $450 million to get the studio up and running.

To pay for the project, the developers are trying to put together a public improvement district that could issue debt and be repaid by from a property tax assessed within the district.

The developers say the district wouldn't be a viable financing option if Villa Muse became subject to city property taxes before its debt was repaid. So the developers also are asking the city to sign an agreement that Villa Muse wouldn't be annexed until its debt was paid off.

Council Member Brewster McCracken said he needs more information.

"We want to know how likely is this to happen," McCracken said. "Do they actually have contracts, memorandums of understanding with studios and an actual real estate developer hired at the moment?"

The development team said the city must act quickly, and they have offered to include a clawback provision in any agreement that would put the property back in Austin's ETJ if the studio fails to materialize within five years. But Council Member Lee Leffingwell said fast action isn't likely.

"I think it's going to take a lot of study," Leffingwell said. "I don't think it can be decided in a matter of a few months."

"Villa Muse is going to happen," said founder and CEO Jay Podolnick. "We hope it happens here."

01-05-2008
Welcome to Austin: The New Migration Boom

The more people that come to Austin, the stronger the downtown condo market. As Austin grows and expands, the value of central living only goes up. As one of the fastest growing cities in the country, this trend is one of the positive factors supporting long-term growth of the downtown population.

Today's news is good news for downtown residents and bad news for anyone that sits in Austin traffic: new statistics from the census bureau show a dramatic acceleration in migration into Travis county and the rest of the Austin metropolitan area. The latest statistics, covering the full year 2006 (Thanks Census Bureau for the quick turn around!), show that a net 9,405 migrated into Travis county in 2006. This tops the tech boom record of 8,575 set in 2000 and represents a strong turn-around from 2002, 2003, and 2004 when the county experienced a net outbound migration.

Here are the migration statistics from 2000 - 2006:

2000 | +8,575
2001 | +4,867
2002 | -11,402
2003 | -7,152
2004 | -1,787
2005 | +1,602
2006 | +9,405

In addition, total migration into central Texas from California more than doubled over the last two years. Californians represent a major portion of new Austin residents, many of whom come with large amounts of home equity. AustinTower's own survey and readership statistics show that Californians are the most active out-of-state shoppers for downtown Austin condos -- followed by residents of New York, Florida, and Illinois.

01-04-2008
Congress Avenue landmark gets a makeover

The historic Yaring's department store on Congress Avenue, which has sat empty for nine years, is getting a dramatic redo.
The building at 506 Congress Ave., which was constructed in the late 1880s, is best known for the store Jacob Schmidt opened in 1936.
Yaring's, once a pillar of downtown commerce, closed in 1998. A forlorn "For Lease" sign has hung across its pink stucco facade for years.
Now, the plan is to renovate it for retail or restaurant use on the first floor and offices on the second and third floors, said Kevin Kimbrough, vice president of Oxford Commercial, which oversees leasing of the building for owner Walter Penn.
"It's got tremendous potential, but it has been hidden for a long time," Kimbrough said. "Underneath is a building that will really stand out."
Austin architect Dick Clark has been hired to design the project, which will focus on returning the facade to its art deco period. Although the building dates back to the late 1880s, its last remaining significant architecture is from the 1930s.
The renovation of the facade will include punching out windows that were covered over decades ago and retaining the building's signature vertical sign. The building will painted a muted green. Inside, Clark said, there was little to salvage.
"It has been remodeled and remodeled, and in the state it was in, a lot of it had to be gutted," he said. "But we're going to try to preserve the character of the building in any way we can."
Among the surviving features are original hardwood floors and exposed brick walls. A rooftop garden patio overlooking Congress Avenue will be added to the project, which is expected to be completed by August.
"When the scaffolding comes down, it will be an incredible addition to Congress Avenue," Clark said.
The Austin Downtown Alliance welcomed the retail plans.
"We see this as a real turning point for downtown and retail on Congress Avenue," said Molly Alexander, associate director of the alliance. "What the owner's doing supports the efforts to revitalize our buildings and bring back downtown retail."
A study by the alliance in 2005 found that of 85 businesses on Congress Avenue, from Lady Bird Lake to the Capitol, just 13 were retail.
It was a far different scene during Yaring's heyday from the 1930s through the 1960s.
In a 1993 interview, Leon Schmidt, Jacob Schmidt's son, recalled the days when throngs of shoppers filled downtown on weekends and retailers counted themselves lucky if they could find storefront space on Congress Avenue.
"If you had property on Congress Avenue, you had an annuity for life," he said.
With the arrival of climate-controlled malls in the 1960s, many downtown shops were closed. Yaring's, which grew to a chain of 10 stores, was sold to an Alabama-based retailer in 1993 and closed for good in 1998.
Penn, an Austin businessman, bought the Yaring's building in 2001, but renovation plans were put on hold to weather the tech bust.
Now, Kimbrough said, the time is right.
A wave of condo projects has drawn a new generation of people downtown, and corner stores, dry cleaners and boutiques are arriving to serve them.
"There is so much happening downtown, and we feel like our building has a lot to offer to the mix," he said.

01-02-2008
Austin housing market a bargain

Texas homes are some of the most undervalued in the nation.

Austin and other Texas housing markets are among the most undervalued in the nation, according to a new analysis of data by Global Insight Inc. and National City Corp.
The companies looked at prices in 333 metro areas in the third quarter of 2007. Such reports are considered important indicators of potential decline and growth in specific cities.
In calculating valuations, the companies used a complex statistical model that included prices, interest rates, household incomes, population density and any historical premiums or discounts for each market. The percentage of over- and undervaluations is intended to reflect where a housing market's price should be.
In Austin, and in Texas overall, recent rapid increases in home prices never occurred, so the state has avoided the real estate bubble that has plagued coastal areas.
If a city's housing is over- or undervalued by up to 14 percent, it is still considered within a fair market range. Anything outside that range means a considerable over- or undervaluation.
For instance, Austin, at 9.1 percent, is in the fair market range, while Dallas, at -28.1 percent, is considered undervalued.
The writers of the report, "House Prices in America," caution about over interpreting the data. For instance, though homes in Bend, Ore., are overvalued by 70 percent, that does not necessarily mean prices in that city are expected to fall that much in the near future.