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Longhorn Al

By Longhorn Al
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YGIFS

YGIFS 19450

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Yeah, those guys kicked out the Wendy's trailer from Lastblox because they said they were gonna finally demo the BK Lounge.  $50 and my left nut says that doesn't happen until 2023 at the earliest.  Wells Fargo is going to ditch that space just east of there in the very near future as well.  And who wouldn't want to take over the lease of that gorgeous architectural gem?  And then yeah, that other bank in front of Randall's is probably going night-night (benchmark is not doing well as a company overall), plus the Randall's appears to be getting more rats, not fewer. 

Yeah, now that you mention it...that 1.5 blocks is about to get far, far worse before it gets remotely better and that's a really great part of town.  Must be really inspiring for a cancer patient going to Seton for treatment to drive in and see nothing but decaying blight before struggling to find a parking space.  

How the fuck is that Subway there still in business?  Hospital workers needing a quick lunch off-site, I can only assume?

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Deej
Deej

Did you lose something in particular?

Mittens
Mittens

2014 >>> 2023

yoladu
yoladu

not exactly downtown.. but... 17 stories.  

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yoladu

yoladu 4094

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 8/31/2022 at 2:43 PM, MAUFRAIS said:

The Wendy’s trailer at 35th and Jefferson is gone. Burger King carcass remains. The commercial real estate bros in charge of that deserve ass cancer in their ass. Same with the Randall’s down the street and the old Austin’s Pizza on Kerbey. That whole area looks like a Robocop set these days.

What the hell was that Wendy's trailer? What was it's function? Was it for mobile delivery? who orders Wendy's to be delivered?

On 8/31/2022 at 2:58 PM, YGIFS said:

Yeah, those guys kicked out the Wendy's trailer from Lastblox because they said they were gonna finally demo the BK Lounge.  $50 and my left nut says that doesn't happen until 2023 at the earliest.  Wells Fargo is going to ditch that space just east of there in the very near future as well.  And who wouldn't want to take over the lease of that gorgeous architectural gem?  And then yeah, that other bank in front of Randall's is probably going night-night (benchmark is not doing well as a company overall), plus the Randall's appears to be getting more rats, not fewer. 

Yeah, now that you mention it...that 1.5 blocks is about to get far, far worse before it gets remotely better and that's a really great part of town.  Must be really inspiring for a cancer patient going to Seton for treatment to drive in and see nothing but decaying blight before struggling to find a parking space.  

How the fuck is that Subway there still in business?  Hospital workers needing a quick lunch off-site, I can only assume?

do we really need 3 ugly one-story bank branches in a 1 block area. Brykerwoods Elementary has 2 to 3 lock-downs a year when those banks get held up.

That Subway is super busy at lunch time.

17 hours ago, Chet Steadman said:

What’s the rumor-of-the-month on what Randall’s will become?

I do miss my Randall's there. The rumor was once condos, then Seton Expansion. Saw in the news very recently that Seton is looking to expand directly to the South across 34th street, but neighbors along that weird part of 31st st don't want that (surprise).

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YGIFS

YGIFS 19450

Posted
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4 minutes ago, yoladu said:

What the hell was that Wendy's trailer? What was it's function? Was it for mobile delivery? who orders Wendy's to be delivered?

do we really need 3 ugly one-story bank branches in a 1 block area. Brykerwoods Elementary has 2 to 3 lock-downs a year when those banks get held up.

That Subway is super busy at lunch time.

I do miss my Randall's there. The rumor was once condos, then Seton Expansion. Saw in the news very recently that Seton is looking to expand directly to the South across 34th street, but neighbors along that weird part of 31st st don't want that (surprise).

The Wendy's was from a company called Lastblox (family office outta DFW funded it-----you would absolutely recognize the restaurant empire behind it).  Kinda of a cool idea.  They've got a bunch of franchises under their belt between casual fast-food to a little nicer up the food chain.  The idea is if you just crave Wendy's or Zaxby's or Applebee's and don't really give a shit about the in-dining experience...do you really give a fuck where your frostee or extreme fajitas come from as long as they have that same reliable taste, right?  So these shipping containers are refitted into fast food kitchens.  Some of them also function as digital/ghost kitchens that can cook for more than one restaurant brand.  They drop them off in unused parking lots or an office/industrial park.  If you wanna walk up and grab it to, great.  But mainly it's meal delivery service folks picking it up for you and bringing it to your office or home.  Nothing original in the delivery concept.  But the idea was you don't need a half acre, 40 impervious cover parking spaces, 2 drive-thru lanes, and 4 extra employees inside maintaining bathrooms and a dining room that nobody uses anymore.  So pass along all that real estate/G&A overhead to the operator and let 'em pocket more per order.  They are starting to put a handful of these together in one industrial park for working folks who can't afford to go to a boutiquey food truck court in Austin and spend 90 minutes and $30 for lunch.  They want $10 for 10 minutes and lunch.  But there's also a huge niche carved out for favor.com or whoever to grab you and the family that meal pack for dinner 'cause you're busy.  It still follows the meal delivery/last-mile thing, it's just that operators prefer it because the margins (which are razor fucking thin in fast/casual) just doubled with the overhead haircut.  /rant 

Wells Fargo just makes the most bizarre fucking internal real estate decisions.  Another rant for another time (I know, I know---y'all can hardly wait).  

Yeah, Seton Foundation CEO says they wanna go south but there's two problems---impervious cover right there and that neighborhood as you point out.  Randall's site could make sense as well but the height variances will be the key there since that whole medical complex is so fucked on parking as is.  Each of the three proposals he shared with me all look viable and all that, but each one of them screams, "This is gonna take 5 years!"  And he's younger than me, so he's got the time to wait this shit out.    

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TKthunder2

TKthunder2 4991

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Seton wasn’t planning on going outside their current tract.

The cardiovascular wing would go in that little parking lot off of 38th sandwiched between the hospital and the underbreezeway cut through.

The women’s and Children’s tower would go where the current parking garage is.

Page 193 in the link below has a good image.

https://www.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=390252

What’s not stated, or in the plans, is that they’ll need a new parking garage which obviously looks like it’ll go in that giant parking lot off 34th near the creek behind their medical office building, but for some reason (environmental worries about the creek I’d guess) they haven’t fully ironed out those plans yet.

No plans, as far as I’m aware, to buy any more land for the hospital’s direct use.

The Greater Seton org might want to buy some of the medical buildings or make some more as they are trying to ramp up their provider networks (like St David is also doing) as Baylor Scott & White is rapidly losing market share and Texas Children’s is coming to town, but that would be under the Medical Group and not the Hospital (small but important distinction) and would just be a regular build plan that any company would go through in Austin.

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DalTxHornFan

DalTxHornFan 3101

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7 hours ago, yoladu said:

no real new news, but on the yahoo home page

https://www.yahoo.com/news/starts-austin-tower-destined-tallest-110233628.html

Work starts on Austin tower destined to be tallest in Texas; project's name revealed

 

 

98 and Red River is now The Waterline.

Soaring to 1,022 feet, Waterline will become the tallest tower in Texas when it opens in 2026. The mixed-use high-rise in downtown Austin will have hotel rooms, office space and apartments.

That's a tall building!  More images and details here:

WaterlineSkyline-scaled.jpg

 

https://austin.towers.net/inside-waterline-downtown-austins-record-breaking-supertall-tower-plan/?pro=caitlyn@towers.net

 

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YGIFS

YGIFS 19450

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What is this supposed to be?  A get well soon boot for a giant diabetic?  

Who knew Iron Works would end up being in the crux of history, where downtown meets Rainey meets Convention Center "district"?  I'm told by the man himself that the tract between this and iHOP is on hold.  Kinda due to a slight cooling (nothing alarming) in the development capital stack ecosystem) but also to shake out what's going on with WCC/NP.  But the upper Rainey, that density is just going to be insane.  Surely that 40' of get the fuck over to the right lane as you exit Chavez from I-35 should handle it though, no?  

What was the old dive biker bar at the end of that dead end road right there?  Asking for a friend...

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bolverk

bolverk 29677

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A NY-based real estate company is entering the Austin market with a couple of new buildings.

https://austin.towers.net/901-south-congress-offices-bringing-austin-more-of-the-good-wood/?pro=caitlyn@towers.net

Low-rise on South Congress across from the Texas School for the Deaf entrance:

901_south_congress_2-scaled.jpg

 

And a mid-rise on the south shore of Town Lake next to South First where the Hyatt Regency surface parking lot now lies:

image.thumb.png.57062f8db7daae9cacde82704a0a7adb.png

image.thumb.png.7639aaa39c606ed5f69bed904a62a05e.png

image.thumb.png.b536ab719e280a3c2aa26a47e06cb57e.png

Edited by bolverk
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Mittens

Mittens 8284

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3 hours ago, bolverk said:

And a mid-rise on the south shore of Town Lake next to South First where the Hyatt Regency surface parking lot now lies:

Cool looking building, but the ingress/egress is going to be absolute shit.  The exit onto Barton Springs during rush hour is already a beating and if you're leaving via 1st St, you'd better want to go north most times of the day.

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bolverk

bolverk 29677

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36 minutes ago, Mittens said:

Cool looking building, but the ingress/egress is going to be absolute shit.  The exit onto Barton Springs during rush hour is already a beating and if you're leaving via 1st St, you'd better want to go north most times of the day.

Yeah, that's a good point. I think they'll be heavily reliant on that little loop that passes under the bridge for folks leaving.

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Fico

Fico 1778

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Related won’t go spec on the Hyatt site. If they don’t prelease a lead tenant the group that owns the dirt will pivot to multi-family.

Related also purchases the ground lease at 3rd and Congress/Colorado.

 

Ritz-Carlton isn’t happening. That information is dated by more than year, I believe.

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SquishMitten

SquishMitten 10408

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On 8/31/2022 at 10:06 AM, Deej said:

Will it, though?

There's a reason it's a barren dirt field. But if they're going through all the trouble to fix it, hopefully they're smarter than the last time they dumped a ton of money into sprucing up Zilker. Definitely need a different staging area for all the shit that gets hauled in for the big festivals

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ztejas

ztejas 43452

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4 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

With all the demographic changes in this State, how the fuck do they find the whitest white people to aggregate for public photos?  

Yeah I expected more black people at an open house for a remodelled power plant in downtown Austin. 

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YGIFS

YGIFS 19450

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I mean, they couldn't find a solitary Hispanic or Asian person (they're usually interested in engineering projects) for the photo?  And look about two thirds to the right, purple shirt, black jeans, bright white sneakers...is that...yeah that is...it's Jerry Seinfeld.  

Edited by YGIFS
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Deej

Deej 76795

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17 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

With all the demographic changes in this State, how the fuck do they find the whitest white people to aggregate for public photos?  

By having it in Austin, the whitest city in Texas. Austin likes to talk a big, progressive game, but they like keeping it white even more. 

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YGIFS

YGIFS 19450

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Yeah, I didn't mean to start a demographics conversation.  But you have to admit that's a pretty white photo even by Austin standards.  There's one black dude in the background and a 1990s Jew apparently.  Just surprised there weren't any token Asians or Hispanics in the pic, that's all.  But "2+/mixed races" is a tough census needle to thread.  I'm a perfect example, you put me and my name and job in a room full of white people, I am white as shit.  Put me in a room full of brown people with my mother's heritage and my Spanish pronunciation and I'm Hispanic as shit.  Put me in a room of people of all races and everybody is like, "Oh great, who invited the asshole?"  

 

also great detective work Lou/ ztejas.  Yes, there are two people of color in the pic...was just cracking wise.  The dude leaning on the railing the grey ballcap,  he's not a person of color.  That's my business partner's son who is working on the project.  They are literally super white from Nebraska.  Just found it a funny picture given how carefully city of Austin projects like to craft their narrative of inclusiveness.  

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DalTxHornFan

DalTxHornFan 3101

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2 hours ago, YGIFS said:

Yeah, I didn't mean to start a demographics conversation.  But you have to admit that's a pretty white photo even by Austin standards.  There's one black dude in the background and a 1990s Jew apparently.  Just surprised there weren't any token Asians or Hispanics in the pic, that's all.  But "2+/mixed races" is a tough census needle to thread.  I'm a perfect example, you put me and my name and job in a room full of white people, I am white as shit.  Put me in a room full of brown people with my mother's heritage and my Spanish pronunciation and I'm Hispanic as shit.  Put me in a room of people of all races and everybody is like, "Oh great, who invited the asshole?"  

 

also great detective work Lou/ ztejas.  Yes, there are two people of color in the pic...was just cracking wise.  The dude leaning on the railing the grey ballcap,  he's not a person of color.  That's my business partner's son who is working on the project.  They are literally super white from Nebraska.  Just found it a funny picture given how carefully city of Austin projects like to craft their narrative of inclusiveness.  

To be fair, they did have Pio Renteria (who rode there on his bicycle) give the opening remarks and do the ribbon-cutting honors.  But that crowd certainly does resemble a typical Austin Neighborhoods Council meeting.

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Armybrat

Armybrat 40847

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3 hours ago, MeerkatBong said:

You can buy a condo pretty cheap right now at The Independent (sub one million), which I think is because it's no longer the shiniest new toy and tallest building in Austin anymore, so prices are coming down?

Son’s friend has been renting a 2 bedroom there for $6,500/month. Maybe he should ask for a reduction.

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