A 36-story apartment community was recently announced. Altavida will feature 255 total units with an average of 1500s.f. & $3300/month. The condominium project plans to begin delivering to residents in May of 2009. Downtown Austin’s rental market has remained extremely tight, and there is an increasing demand for downtown Austin living.
Email forwarded from Jude Galligan…
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Austin residents are invited to attend a public meeting on Wednesday, April 30, hosted by the Waller Creek Citizen Advisory Committee, as a follow-up to last Novembers workshop. At the upcoming meeting, the City of Austin will report back to the community and share new schematics of the Waller Creek Tunnel features, based on feedback received at the previous workshop. The Waller Creek Tunnel will provide flood control that will allow redevelopment to occur along the creek.
The meeting will take place:
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
6:30 to 8:30 pm
Auditorium at the University of Texas Thompson Conference Center
2405 Robert Dedman Drive
(Southwest corner of Dean Keeton and Red River)
Note: Parking is free in Lot 40 located just east of the center
For more information and to RSVP to the April 30 meeting, please contact Kimberly Springer, Public Works, Public Information and Community Outreach Coordinator, 512-974-7139, or Kimberly.Springer@ci.austin.tx.us.
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Alright…this is old news, but I wanted to post it anyways. 360 Condos are celebrated their “topping out” on 11/12 by hoisting a live oak to roof of the 44-story project. The 360 condos will be completed early next year.
360 Condos will be the first completed high rise project of the many in construction. They sold briskly & were priced on the entry level side of downtown condos. The finish out is still extremely nice, as is the project overall.
The Monarch, which started out initially as an apartment highrise & flipped to condo sales, has flipped back to its original conception as an apartment community. The project looks to be about 80% complete, and the word through the grapevine is that its investors set an end of October goal of 80% sold in order to move forward with the project as a condo sale.
There’s been a ton of speculation about the downtown Austin condo market. I’m a little leery of it - especially with the recent shifts in the mortgage market. Most of the projects are very close to sold out in pre-construction. However, I think that a large percentage of the buyers downtown are in the volatile “alt-A” category & will be very curious to see how many of the contracts convert.
Regardless, I think the Monarch’s conversion back to a rental apartment community is a good shift for downtown. It adds much needed lease units, and takes a nice chunk of sale inventory out of the market - which will help prop up the prices.
Seriously…and it would actually be super-sweet. “Waller Creek Whitewater Trail” a local group that’s put together the proposition, says that it’s actually perfect. In order to get ~1 million s.f. of downtown real estate out of the floodplain, the city has approved a $125m tunnel that’s going to be used to divert water underneath the creek when it storms. This same tunnel can be used to pipe water up the creek from Town Lake (I refuse to call it Ladybird Lake) whenever it’s NOT storming. By doing this, we can have controlled rapids in the middle of downtown Austin 365 days out of the year.
Let me say…I think this would be a first for any major city’s downtown.
I’ve been working on closing a Four Season’s condo w/ one of their on-sites, Ian Stonington. The transaction has been a bit difficult, but I think we’ll get it to the finish line. Regardless, Ian let me know a few days ago that they’ve hit their mark to break ground & should do so within a couple of months.
The project is going to be fantastic. It’s priced from the $400’s to $3m+, and is typically ~$600/s.f. The HOA will be roughly $.65/s.f. and will include quite a bit. They are constructing a tunnel from the Four Season’s hotel to the condo’s and every service offered to the Four Season’s guests will be available to the Four Season’s residents.
Construction has begun on the 850k s.f. mixed use Block 21 in downtown Austin. And yes, kids, that does include The W Hotel (of Cash McMogulson fame…no medium sized deals) The W will be pretty incredible, and will more than likely attract some super-trendy people from all over Austin. (I’ll be conspicuously absent - opting instead to spend my free time drinking beer/wakeboarding.)
But seriously, The W is going to be sweet, and definitely helps cement Austin’s status as an up/coming major metropolitan area. And while I probably won’t spend much time there (if any) I can definitely appreciate what it is, and what it means for downtown Austin.
Gables Residential has announced their intention to build a 165 unit apartment building on the northeast corner of 5th & Pressler in West downtown Austin. The project will consist of ~1000s.f. units, is slated to cost $35m, and will begin in October.
Downtown Austin is growing about as quickly as it can. If you’re familiar with Austin, you’re familiar with the Frost Bank Tower - currently the tallest building downtown at 33 stories. One of my friends emailed me this link - it’s a really killer flash animation that shows you what’s coming in the next few years. Check it out & let me know what you think!