REAL ESTATE

Developers lining up for Green project

City is speeding up timeline for downtown redevelopment site

By Shonda Novak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Developers, start your clocks.

The city is adhering to a speedier-than-usual timeline for bidders competing for a choice downtown real estate opportunity — the redevelopment of the Thomas C. Green Water Treatment Plant at West Cesar Chavez and San Antonio streets.

In addition to local interest, the project is expected to attract national attention.

Proposals to transform the plant, which is being decommissioned, are due April 30. Developers would make presentations to the City Council starting May 14, with the council expected to select a winning bidder June 19.

“It’s beyond fast track… but we fully intend to keep this pace,” Byron Johnson, the city’s purchasing officer, said after a meeting Monday in which city officials outlined the vision for the project.

And in a first for the city, the conference was videostreamed. Johnson said the city received more than 20 calls from interested viewers in such places as California and New York.

“We anticipate significant national interest, just based on overtures we’ve received over the past couple of years as the national and international development community heard we were considering redeveloping that property,” said Fred Evins, project manager for the Green redevelopment in the city’s Economic Growth and Redevelopment Services Office. “I think it’s a reflection of our overall economic health and the vitality of our downtown,” which is experiencing a retail and residential resurgence.

The city sees the six-acre redevelopment as pivotal to the revival of a once largely industrial part of downtown that is getting housing, shopping, entertainment and cultural and civic attractions, including a new central library and a new home for KLRU and its “Austin City Limits” music show.

Ultimately, Green is seen as a key link in the city’s vision to connect downtown’s western edge to the Austin Convention Center via the planned extension of Second Street.

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Tags: austin, development, downtown, green building, urban development by Aria
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Wednesday, March 5, 2008

In the largest redevelopment opportunity ever for downtown Austin, the city has issued a request for proposals for the purchase and redevelopment of the Thomas C. Green Water Treatment Plant and the adjoining Austin Energy Control Center. The two properties total about 6.1 acres or 5 city blocks.

The Green and Austin Energy sites are being heralded by city and business leaders as the missing anchor between the Second Street Retail District and the future activity of the Seaholm District redevelopment. The properties could bring the most significant retail to downtown to date, city leaders say. The city also plans to direct 40 percent of the property tax proceeds from the redevelopment to an Austin Housing Trust Fund towards creating affordable housing in the urban core.

The minimum purchase price will be based on the final appraised value of the properties. The preliminary appraised value is $41 million, but a final appraised value should be determined before March 31.

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Tags: austin, austin real estate, building, downtown, economy, environment, green, neighborhoods by Aria
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Wednesday, March 5, 2008 - 3:50 PM CST

Austin Business Journal

The steel and glass residential towers set to reshape the downtown Austin skyline aren’t a pipedream. They’re coming–and they’re going to be filled, a new study shows.

The analysis from Texas economist Ray Perryman suggests that while the nation battles a housing correction, Austin’s residential market remains relatively healthy. Moreover, says Perryman, there is clear demand among Austinites to live in the city’s vibrant downtown.

There are currently about 6,000 people living downtown. And with about 4,000 residential units under construction or planned around downtown, that population is expected to double over the next two years. Perryman says with the Austin area adding more than 40,000 new residents annually, the local housing market will continue to fair well, and rising energy costs and traffic woes will drive a growing interest in urban living.

“This housing market will fundamentally support the type of housing being developed downtown,” Perryman said at a morning press conference at City Hall organized to discuss the report. “There is an amble population to absorb these units.”

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Tags: austin, building, buyers, condos, downtown, economy, investing, neighborhoods, real estate, urban living by Aria
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Brian Wingfield and William Pentland 01.30.08, 2:20 PM ET

It’s no secret that the Southeast and Western United States are booming. The costs of living and doing business there are often cheaper there than in big coastal cities. But where and how much those cities are thriving might surprise you.

Take Alabama. The state has some of the fastest growing metro areas in the country, including Mobile, which is projected to have the greatest change in “gross metropolitan product (GMP),” 34% between 2007-2012, according to research forecasts done for us by Moody’s Economy.com.

In Pictures: America’s Fastest-Growing Large And Small Metros

One boon to Alabama is ThyssenKrupp’s announcement last year to build a $3.7 billion steel plant in Mobile. And Huntsville–expected GMP growth 15% by 2012–has long been a hub for defense and space research. Since the mid-1990s, Alabama has also become a manufacturing center for automakers like DaimlerChrysler (nyse: DCX - news - people ), Toyota (nyse: TM - news - people ) and Hyundai.

“The automotive industry has been Alabama’s real growth industry in the last 15 years,” says Brian Hilson, president and CEO of Huntsville’s chamber of commerce.

Other metro areas, like Port St. Lucie and Palm Bay, are part of a growing biotech cluster in central Florida. Straddling Texas and Arkansas, Texarkana is seeing war-related development: Its Red River Army Depot is a major maintenance and storage facility for military equipment. And St. George, Utah, located about 120 miles from Las Vegas, has boomed in recent years as a destination for retirees.

All of them sit at or near the top of Forbes’ list of America’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas, places large and small that offer at least the promise of booming economies for years to come.

To compile our list, we looked at all of the country’s 363 metropolitan areas, defined by the U.S. Census Bureau has a geographic region with a “core urban area” of at least 50,000 people. Because many small metro areas are high growth–and because we wanted to show growth in large cities as well–we split the group into two classes: the largest 100 metro areas (with at least 528,000 people) and everyone else. We use projections run for us by Moody’s Economy.com to show growth in GMP between 2007-2012.

Of course, if one looks at economic growth in the country’s largest 100 metros, the usual suspects jump to the top of the list. With an estimated 32% GMP growth from 2007-2012, Austin, Texas, is the winner for big metros. Atlanta, Seattle, Orlando, Houston and San Jose, Calif., also appear high on the list. What do they all have in common? They’re tech hubs with proximity to universities and a healthy increase in population. Austin’s population, for example, is expected to increase by nearly 15% by 2012, according to Moody’s Economy.com forecasts.

Bruce Katz, director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, says there are several factors to take into consideration when measuring the pulse of a metro area: innovation, human capital, infrastructure and the actual quality of a place.

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Tags: austin, austin real estate, buyers, downtown, economy, financing, investing, money, real estate, sellers, where to buy by Aria
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By Shonda Novak | Thursday, February 28, 2008, 12:47 PM

Work is expected to start in about a month on the $120 million BartonPlace condominium development on Barton Springs Road, after the project won unanimous City Council approval for a zoning change today, the developers said.

The 270-unit project will replace the Shady Grove Trailer Park on Barton Springs, behind Austin Java.

The developers are Larry Warshaw and Perry Lorenz of Constructive Ventures Inc., builders of the The Pedernales, Saltillo Lofts, TwentyOne24, and Este condo projects in East Austin. Constructive Ventures is partnering in BartonPlace with Rick Engel, co-owner of Austin Java, Little Woodrow’s, Paggi House and Uncle Billy’s.

The development team has signed a private agreement with the Zilker Neighborhood Association that will forever limit the development of the portion of the property that fronts Barton Springs Road, to help preserve the local businesses that make up Austin’s popular “restaurant row.”

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By Shonda Novak | Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 03:25 PM

Groundbreaking has been delayed for the condo project called 1155 Barton Springs, which is destined to replace the long-vacant Treehouse restaurant and nightclub at Dawson and Barton Springs Road.

Developers Elisabeth and Steffen Waltz and their partners had hoped to start construction on the project by the end of 2007. But yesterday, Elisabeth Waltz wrote in an email:

“These times seem to call for a measured approach. It may take us a few more months to start construction; we will start when we have 50% or more of the residences sold. (Personally, having been a real estate broker for many years, I would prefer all of them pre-sold).”

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The burbs no longer beckon residents who want to end commutes and be close to it all.

By Shonda Novak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, February 10, 2008

‘Urban Re-Renewal: Downtowns making a comeback as places to call home.”

“Downtown Living All the Rage.”

“Crazy for condos: Downtown Scottsdale joins nation’s upscale urban living boom.”

Headlines in cities across the country document the continued popularity of downtown living, a trend that re-emerged in the 1990s locally and nationally. In this sense, Austin isn’t so weird after all.

Like Boston, Detroit, Denver and many other cities, Austin has its share of singles and young professionals, executives, empty nesters, retirees and, increasingly, young families headed to where the action is: downtown.

They’re being drawn by the dining, music, nightlife and recreational and cultural amenities, from galleries and performing arts venues to Lady Bird Lake.

They are a diverse group, of all ages and occupations.

“Time is the most important commodity that people have in their lives, and living downtown means people spending less time stuck in traffic and more time enjoying life,” says Larry Warshaw, a co-developer of four condominium projects in East Austin and the 42-story Spring tower under construction downtown. “I see it being a trend that will continue for several decades.”

Warshaw echoes the views of other experts, including John McIlwain, senior fellow resident for housing with the Urban Land Institute who himself moved from the suburbs of Washington, D.C., to live in that city’s downtown.

“There are and always will be those who want a house with a yard in the suburbs,” McIlwain says, “but more and more are opting to move to the revived cities. Decades of major investments in cities by the federal government along with mayors focusing on the basics have made cities safe and vibrant places to live.”

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Tags: austin, building, buyers, condos, downtown, investing, money, neighborhoods, urban living, where to buy by Aria
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