Downtown Projects

[Grippe 310]

2 hours ago, SwanderedTalent said:

I thought they didn't need to play us anymore now that they's SEC SEC SEC

Well, to be fair the real reason they wanted to nuke Austin was they were sick and tired of calling into Dell Tech Support.

Edited March 18, 2019 by Grippe

[Pasken 1309]

Surly, Get Ready to get TRIGGERED: Proposal for auto lanes removal on Congress Downtown for Sidewalks/BikeLanes.

 

To be fair, there are currently no dedicated turn lanes on Congress so the leftmost lane will cause traffic backups when people are waiting to turn. The new proposal will add dedicated left turn lanes so traffic flows better. I'm mostly for the change in downtown.

 

However, removing auto lanes from the Congress bridge is a tough call considering how few lake crossings there are. At the same time, Cap Metro is trying to extend bus only lanes from 3rd to Riverside over the S. 1st bridge which would involve removing 1 lane of auto traffic and having another lane reversible to go with the flow of traffic (north in the morning, south in the afternoon).  This HAS to happen. The bus system would improve dramatically if they had their own lane across the lake and a dedicated left turn arrow for buses to turn on Riverside. 

Misc:

 

[Guest Lobo]

But, but, but...you can't get a Texan to give up his truck.

Transportation as a utility, not as a pride of ownership depreciating asset, is coming.  I'm not sure this is the right solution right now...but it is coming faster than most people realize.  

They said no Texan would give up his horse 100+ years ago and look where we are.  

[Deej 76751]

Like any of those little scooter assholes will use a designated scooter lane. 

[Guest Lobo]

16 minutes ago, Deej said:

Like any of those little scooter assholes will use a designated scooter lane. 

Good point, when the technological disruption behind transportation endeavored to solve the conundrum of "The Last Mile", they didn't mean for people to behave like it was the last mile they were ever gonna traverse on this planet.  

[Neonmoon 38129]

I'm all for this change. I don't give a fuck about anyone's truck. 

[Ghost of LL 15531]

Let's be real honest about Congress--there is currently only one lane of traffic in each direction that can flow freely.  The left lane is often occupied by people turning left, and the right lane is often occupied by bikes/scooters/people parking/uber dropping-off or picking up.  Removing parking and putting in a real bike/scooter lane removes three of those four causes of right-lane congestion.  

And anyway--Congress should be (and is) more of a pedestrian avenue.  Part of the plan that I really like is the removal of the angled parking.

[bolverk 29648]

Y'all remember the building that was imploded downtown on 7th, right? Here's the replacement building (reposted from page 1); it's being called Block 71 or 200 W 6th and is under construction right now:

If you look closely, they're planning a nice little outdoor landscaped area as a public space. Good for them!

But this is absolutely the most fucked up rendering I've ever seen that shows a close-up viewing the space toward the northwest. Let's see if you can find what I'm talking about.
 

Spoiler

 

 

https://campbella.com/

Edited March 23, 2019 by bolverk

[Neonmoon 38129]

[Longhorn Al 440]

Ohhhhh man.  It's about time.  Something huge could replace Hobby.

https://www.statesman.com/news/20190328/sale-plan-could-make-terrible-hobby-state-office-building-hot-property

[Deej 76751]

There go the $6 lunches in the Hobby cafeteria for all the construction workers downtown.

[Longhorn Al 440]

Was thinking about the potential that surrounds Republic Square.  It could end up a forest of skyscrapers.

Green = under construction (ZaZa)

Blue = planned (6X, Republic, Hanover)

Red = potential (USPS, Hobby, block west of court house, 1/4 block north of IBC Bank, garage south of court house)

 

[LonghornSean 3989]

Just noticed these lights on the top of SXSW HQ for the first time. They’re cycling through a gradient of: blue, green, teal, with a bit of pink and yellow.

[LonghornSean 3989]

Better pic from the street.

[CleverNickname 1308]

doh!  I was distracted by the pretty photos and didn't realize Hobby was already discussed. 

Edited March 29, 2019 by CleverNickname
redux

[CleverNickname 1308]

Almost a shame The Republic is so far along in planning. Maybe there could be some crazy 3 block mega development that stretched from Hobby to Garage N. I want sky bridges and a gazillion square feet. 

[Longhorn Al 440]

12 minutes ago, CleverNickname said:

Almost a shame The Republic is so far along in planning. Maybe there could be some crazy 3 block mega development that stretched from Hobby to Garage N. I want sky bridges and a gazillion square feet. 

But then it wouldn't be as tall.  I want point towers!

[Larry T. Spider 1746]

Haven’t you heard, sky bridges are racist.

[Texas Jeff 1942]

On 3/21/2019 at 12:21 PM, Pasken said:

However, removing auto lanes from the Congress bridge is a tough call considering how few lake crossings there are.

Bikers/Scooter people can't go 1000 feet west to 1st street, a bridge that has bike lanes on both sides of the bridge and cantilevered lower bridges for walking and biking attached to each side of the bridge, in addition to the bike lanes?  Does every crossing need sidewalks and bike lanes and car lanes?  Just a question...

Personally I would rather spend money on more pedestrian bridges like the one by the Lamar bridge, maybe a bridge from where Trinity street ends on the north to somewhere on the Statesman site on the south.  The Pfluger pedestrian bridge near Lamar totally changed the feel of that crossing, from OMG I am going to die crossing this bridge to hey this is a cool place to hang out for a while.

[Longhorn Al 440]

I forgot to add the Ballet 1/2 block to the image above.  That's always a possibility of getting a tower.  Maybe incorporate a level or two for the Ballet to stay.

[bolverk 29648]

10 hours ago, Texas Jeff said:

Bikers/Scooter people can't go 1000 feet west to 1st street, a bridge that has bike lanes on both sides of the bridge and cantilevered lower bridges for walking and biking attached to each side of the bridge, in addition to the bike lanes?  Does every crossing need sidewalks and bike lanes and car lanes?  Just a question...

 Personally I would rather spend money on more pedestrian bridges like the one by the Lamar bridge, maybe a bridge from where Trinity street ends on the north to somewhere on the Statesman site on the south.  The Pfluger pedestrian bridge near Lamar totally changed the feel of that crossing, from OMG I am going to die crossing this bridge to hey this is a cool place to hang out for a while.

Several years ago there was a discussion about having new cantilevered walkways attached to either side of the Congress Ave. Bridge to increase pedestrian safety and capacity. I'm not sure what happened to those ideas.

[Armybrat 40818]

11 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Several years ago there was a discussion about having new cantilevered walkways attached to either side of the Congress Ave. Bridge to increase pedestrian safety and capacity. I'm not sure what happened to those ideas.

That’s what they could easily do at the Pennybacker Bridge to get the bikes out of the way and restripe the bridge for 3 lanes of vehicular traffic.

[bolverk 29648]

I got curious and did some digging. Apparently, the discussion I misremembered was in reference to the Lamar Bridge when Council was decided whether or not to build the Pfluger pedestrian one we have now.

Nearly 20-year-old (!) AusChron article on the Council's decision that even includes a Who Wants to be a Millionaire reference:

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2000-04-21/76939/

Spoiler

 

Crossing That Bridge
Council Approves Separate Lamar Bridge Option
BY JENNY STAFF JOHNSON, FRI., APRIL 21, 2000

The hour was nearing 1am, and the council was a punchy bunch. The meeting had dragged on into the wee hours yet again, and the pesky Lamar Bridge issue remained unresolved. In a valiant attempt to get it over with, council members rallied enough to make, at least in theory, their final decision: They voted to build a separate pedestrian and bicycle bridge across Town Lake in the vicinity of Lamar Blvd.    That decision didn't come without a fair amount of uncertain-sounding late-night discussion. It was almost as if the council was discussing the issue for the first time all over again as they batted around the merits -- and the costs -- of the two bridge options. "My brain is dead right now, and I can't remember the designs," said Mayor Pro Tem Jackie Goodman, before reiterating her belief that a separate bridge would be a more versatile long-term transportation option for recreational users and commuters alike.

Council Member Gus Garcia declared himself "just as confused as anyone else" about the issue before having one of those "I could've had a V8!" moments up on the dais: "My brother worked for TxDOT for 38 years, and he was a highway engineer who worked on bridges," said Garcia. "I don't know why I haven't called him before." Council Member Willie Lewis wondered aloud, "Is this like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, where you get one phone call?"

But Regis wasn't there, and nobody got to make a phone call. Instead, the council just voted. First, the cantilever option (adding a bike/ped component onto the existing structure) failed by a vote of 2-4, with Bill Spelman and Beverly Griffith voting yes and Mayor Kirk Watson absent. Then, with the cantilever effectively dead, the separate bridge passed by a vote of 6-0. ("I'm not a sore loser," Spelman said before casting his yes vote.) The new bridge should be complete -- again, in theory -- by May of next year.

The arguments for the winning side were as follows: First, because much of the design work on the separate bridge had been done, it could be finished about six months sooner than the more unexplored cantilever option. Also, architect Girard Kinney, who has worked on the separate bridge design for the city, preferred the separate bridge from a transportation standpoint. He argued that the pedestrian lanes on the cantilever would not be wide enough to accommodate both serious commuters and hike-and-bikers, to say nothing of those making the occasional trip out to the middle of the bridge to take photographs or watch fireworks.

Though the separate bridge passed by the council this week does not include the originally planned flyover to Fifth Street, Kinney said that could be added later when the money was available, making it a more comprehensive transportation solution than the cantilever could ever be.

Council Member Bill Spelman argued forcefully that only the cantilever makes sense as a commuter option, because it would be directly in the north-south travel corridor. The separate bridge as approved by the council, Spelman argued, would take commuters decidedly out of their way -- from Lamar to the bridge and then back again. And, echoing other participants in the debate, Spelman said he suspected that factors other than optimal design and cost savings were at work in the bridge discussion.

"City staff early on decided the separate bridge was going to be necessary," he said. "Then, no matter how good the arguments were from a different approach, it was difficult for Public Works to get their arms around something different. I'm pretty sure they just wanted to build a new bridge -- a new bridge is flashier to build than a cantilever."

Another force that may have been driving the decision was the matter of historical preservation, and its transportation-related subtext. One source suggested that the calls for preserving the bridge in its current state may have not been designed to stop the cantilever so much as to promote another possible destiny for the bridge: its expansion to six lanes of automobile traffic. Originally, it was thought that the cantilever would make such expansion more tricky in the future, because the pedestrian lanes would have to be removed and another route for pedestrians established. Now, it seems, that logic may have been turned on its head: If you put on the cantilever and thereby remove the bridge's historical status, the logic goes, then it would be easier down the line to tear it down and build a brand-new, six-lane bridge.

But perhaps, under some future council, that will happen anyway -- and the new six-lane bridge will share riverfront space with the pedestrian bridge and the railroad bridge, in addition to the First Street and Congress Bridges. Then what would the riverfront vista look like? (It's probably this issue that turned Town Lake matriarchs Roberta Crenshaw and Mary Arnold into cantilever proponents.)

Some cantilever opponents believe that even though the historical bridge will remain intact with the separate bridge, the opportunities for actually viewing it will be slight. Since the new bridge will likely block views of the Lamar bridge from the east, and since to the west of the bridge lies a mostly undeveloped hike-and-bike trail, the only vista available will be from behind the windshield of a speeding car -- or from the new pedestrian bridge itself.

 

 

[Armybrat 40818]

While separate pedestrian bridges work well on Town Lake, it would most likely be cost prohibitive up by Pennybacker on Lake Austin. Imo, but the cantilever looks like the better option for that location. (Not an Engineer)

There ought be more  built from MoPac down to Pleasant Valley.

[Pasken 1309]

3 hours ago, Armybrat said:

That’s what they could easily do at the Pennybacker Bridge to get the bikes out of the way and restripe the bridge for 3 lanes of vehicular traffic.

What's the point of making the bridge 3 lanes when the rest of the highway is 2 lanes? You just create traffic by forcing vehicles to merge back together. 

[Pasken 1309]

14 hours ago, Texas Jeff said:

Bikers/Scooter people can't go 1000 feet west to 1st street, a bridge that has bike lanes on both sides of the bridge and cantilevered lower bridges for walking and biking attached to each side of the bridge, in addition to the bike lanes?  Does every crossing need sidewalks and bike lanes and car lanes?  Just a question...

Personally I would rather spend money on more pedestrian bridges like the one by the Lamar bridge, maybe a bridge from where Trinity street ends on the north to somewhere on the Statesman site on the south.  The Pfluger pedestrian bridge near Lamar totally changed the feel of that crossing, from OMG I am going to die crossing this bridge to hey this is a cool place to hang out for a while.

 

There is something like that planned for the future but it would hit the other site of the creek. The Trinity connection is still earmarked for a future Cap Metro bridge which could carry the Blue (Riverside/Airport) Line across the lake.

 

[Updawg 2266]

Don’t like the way the top turned out on Austin’s newest skyscraper, the one nicknamed the “Jenga tower?” You have company.

Grassroots organizers have launched a social media campaign calling for the architects and developers of the 58-story tower, officially called the Independent, to “fix the crown” on top of the high-profile building with its distinctive cantilevered design. The high-rise is the tallest building in Austin, and the tallest residential tower west of the Mississippi River.

But for such a prominent and otherwise “gorgeous” building, the crown “is a stunning disappointment,” said Ben Anstead, organizer of the “Fix the Crown” campaign.

“It looks cheap and unfinished, like someone boxed in an air conditioner with a chain link fence. It’s an architecturally significant building, but the top fell flat,” he said. “I live on South Lamar and see the building every day. I hang out downtown and go around the (hike-and-bike) trail, and every time I look up I just cringe a little bit.”

Anstead, who works for a tech company, said he came up with the “Fix the Crown”campaign Sunday after talking with some of his friends about the building. The campaign includes a Change.org petition, Instagram and Facebook pages and a website, www.fixthecrown.org.

“What was highly anticipated as the crowning achievement of the Austin skyline has become an embarrassing scar on an otherwise well executed project,” the website says. “This campaign is to encourage both the architects and builders of the Independent to address this issue and correct their mistake. This building will stand in Austin for 100+ years and now is the time to do something about this poorly executed top. ”

Anstead said the campaign is meant to be “lighthearted, but also kind of serious.”

“Part of the campaign is just awareness, that that’s the finished product,” Anstead said. He said he thinks a lot of people were under the same impression he was when the construction cranes came down: That there was more to come.

“Initially I was like, when are they going to finish it? The realization for me that they weren’t going to finish it is what started driving me crazy.”

https://www.statesman.com/news/20190329/campaign-calls-for-better-crown-for-austins-jenga-tower

[Deej 76751]

It looks like the top of the courthouse where they let the inmates have rec time.

[Armybrat 40818]

1 hour ago, Pasken said:

What's the point of making the bridge 3 lanes when the rest of the highway is 2 lanes? You just create traffic by forcing vehicles to merge back together. 

For when 360 is expanded to 3 lanes each way.

[Pasken 1309]

6 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

For when 360 is expanded to 3 lanes each way.

And when is that happening?

[Armybrat 40818]

Probably when Rosie O’Donnell flies.

[Longhorn Al 440]

Convention Center expansion ideas from UT study:  https://communityimpact.com/austin/central-austin/city-county/2019/03/29/new-austin-convention-center-expansion-report-envisions-the-venues-place-in-a-modernizing-downtown/

 

[Longhorn Al 440]

New renderings of Block 185.

 

[Updawg 2266]

New renderings of Block 185.



 

I like it. Looks like something in Dubai. Kind of fat looking though

[Deej 76751]

Not a fan.

[Longhorn Al 440]

5 minutes ago, Updawg said:

31 minutes ago, Longhorn Al said:

New renderings of Block 185.



 

Read more  

I like it. Looks like something in Dubai. Kind of fat looking though

Yeah, I'm not sure the rendering is tall enough.  We've been hearing 589' which would be taller than the 360's spire. 

[Longhorn Al 440]

Notice the inverted triangles on the SE corner?  Those angled corners are a cool detail.

Edited April 4, 2019 by Longhorn Al

[Neonmoon 38129]

I like the renderings. Looks pretty cool. 

[Longhorn Al 440]

6 minutes ago, Deej said:

Not a fan.

What about it do you not like?

I think it's a pretty creative design to accommodate the restrictions that site has.  They had to angle away from both the river and Shoal Creek.  Their buildable area on that lot was basically a skinny pyramid.

[Deej 76751]

I personally don't find it aesthetically pleasing. Can't really explain it. 

[drewlaws 126]

What about it do you not like?
I think it's a pretty creative design to accommodate the restrictions that site has.  They had to angle away from both the river and Shoal Creek.  Their buildable area on that lot was basically a skinny pyramid.

Is this because capitol view or a different ordinance?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Longhorn Al 440]

8 minutes ago, drewlaws said:

Is this because capitol view or a different ordinance?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not the CVC.  Just overlays for Town Lake and Shoal Creek. 

[drewlaws 126]

Not the CVC.  Just overlays for Town Lake and Shoal Creek. 

Is that why Northshore next door has a design that steps back and away from town lake?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Longhorn Al 440]

18 minutes ago, drewlaws said:

Is that why Northshore next door has a design that steps back and away from town lake?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yep.  They were forced to angle it back from the lake.

[J.R. Juniors Junior Jr. 1084]

11 hours ago, Deej said:

Not a fan.

Yep, it's more of a sail.

[Armybrat 40818]

13 hours ago, Updawg said:

13 hours ago, Longhorn Al said:

New renderings of Block 185.



 

I like it. Looks like something in Dubai. Kind of fat looking though

It looks like it is telling the complainers behind it “ tough shit, butt out”.

[Guest Lobo]

It's starting to bother me when I take West 5th Street into downtown in the morning.  The Western facing facade of the 5th & West condo building.  The north side looks good, but the architect had to know that it would be on of the first skyscrapers to greet you on your way into downtown.  And the west facade is just a bag of shit.  there it is, just waiting to suck.

[MAUFRAIS 6615]

One of those over there has the rooftop jailyard thing like the jenga building.

[Armybrat 40818]

Those look like butterfly cages.

WTF have they been teaching in architect school lately?

[tucker 238]

Met with a major developer of Austin downtown. Said office space rents are out of control and multiple buildings that he hasn't even broken ground are already filled from technology companies coming from the Bay.

I'd expect downtown to continue to change drastically based on the demand for offices.