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Austin is trying to grow up. To become more cosmopolitan. To be a city with a 24-hour downtown area where people can walk to work and the grocery store and restaurants. But at what cost? And who, exactly, will live there? We’ve lived in urban areas from San Francisco to Chicago to New York, and we love the ability to use public transportation or our own two feet to get from pharmacy to bar to post office. But those cities offer rental properties, while Austin seems to be focusing its expansion on condominium sales, further gentrifying the city. So we wonder for whom exactly this new urban planning in Austin is intended. (Probably not us, as new properties will be listed between $200,000-$400,000.) And to what end all this senseless construction?
What in the hell are we talking about, you might be asking. Well, late last night the City of Austin’s Zoning & Platting Commission voted 7-2 to approve the building of Spring Tower, a residential hi-rise located and 3rd and Bowie. Developers (Atlanta based Novare Urban LLC with help from Austin development firm Andrews Urban LLC) had intentions of constructing buildings of 400 feet (36 stories), but the commission made a recommendation that the buildings be capped at somewhere between 275-350 feet (probably 32 stories, we are assuming). The current zoning laws in the proposed areas limit buildings to 120 feet. The committee’s recommendation is just that however, a recommendation. They will send their suggestion to city hall where council members will make their final decision on November 3rd.
The committee meetings were attended by advocates of the new projects as well as advocates for more intelligent and well-though-out city planning. Many opponents of the construction feel that the city is cow-towing to greedy developers instead of making intelligent decisions that will promote long-term prosperity for the city.
So, what do you think, Austinites? Keep your big steel and glass phalluses out of downtown fringe neighborhoods and away from the natural beauty of Town Lake and her park? Or are you all for it? More ¼-million-dollar residences with sleek retail on the ground in case more Californians want to move here or a few Dellionaires get a wild-hair and decide to move into town? Austin is changing, no doubt about it, but how/when/why we change is up to us…or at least we should have a voice.
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You present a completely false dilemna, stacking the deck for your desired answer. The Spring condos ain't that expensive, and even if they were, new construction in cities is ALMOST ALWAYS going to be more expensive than old multi-family.
My $96,000 (1997) condo in Clarksville remains cheaper to rent today than it would be if buildings like the Nokonah hadn't been built, since some of those upper-crust buyers and renters would have instead moved into the middle-tier stuff, and THOSE renters/buyers would have crowded out the people renting my old unit.
The high price for center-city housing continues to show that a lot more people WANT to live there than can currently do so. IE, a supply-demand imbalance exists.
We are moving on up, but to the EAST side.
M1Ek, i wasn't really trying to stack the deck, just posting hastily. i like the idea of an urban city center and have spent most of my life living in one and currently live less than a mile from 6th and congress (downtown's heart). i just wonder how popular they will be and with whom and will that price people out of the new retail and ventures that end up downtown and what will it do to downtown fringe neighborhood's rent prices such as mine. i hope you are right, M1EK, and seeing your exhaustive reserach on this and othe rurban matters, i defer to your judgment. and it goes to further foreshadow the potentiality set forth in the excellent doc. "The End of Suburbia"
The problem in declaring that $250,000 condos are only for the rich is that the 'cheap housing' near downtown that you posit is getting 'driven out' is pretty much all MORE expensive than that. Unless, of course, it's in the form of multi-family housing, like the condominium unit to which I referred (whose rent went down a couple years ago due to a glut of housing and is still not back up to where it was 3 years ago, by the way).
Try to find a house for $250,000 in Old West Austin that isn't one of the strip right next to Mopac and isn't falling apart. If there were any, I'd have bought one instead of moving to the even more reactionary North University neighborhood... because I liked it a lot more over there.
The ONLY way to keep Austin affordable is to increase supply of housing - and since we're running out of land in our own city, the only way to do THAT is to build more multi-family housing.
The problem in declaring that $250,000 condos are only for the rich is that the 'cheap housing' near downtown that you posit is getting 'driven out' is pretty much all MORE expensive than that. Unless, of course, it's in the form of multi-family housing, like the condominium unit to which I referred (whose rent went down a couple years ago due to a glut of housing and is still not back up to where it was 3 years ago, by the way).
Try to find a house for $250,000 in Old West Austin that isn't one of the strip right next to Mopac and isn't falling apart. If there were any, I'd have bought one instead of moving to the even more reactionary North University neighborhood... because I liked it a lot more over there.
The ONLY way to keep Austin affordable is to increase supply of housing - and since we're running out of land in our own city, the only way to do THAT is to build more multi-family housing.
Oh, to more succinctly answer your question: buildings like Spring will result in LOWER rent for your neighborhood than would be the case if they weren't built. Your rent's probably not going down anyways (until another recession) but Spring sucking away part of the demand for central housing will retard the GROWTH in your rent.
i agree. and you can't find anything in the area of downtown from travis heights to clarksville,etc for less than 300K.
see, M1EK, your contributions are why we post these things, to get y'alls' opinions and knowledge and have this conversation, so thank you.
with that said, i am moving to Florence...texas.
George and I are moving to Green Acres. We hear that it's the place to be.
i'm all for density. the developers must be building the units at that price point for a reason. as the other poster said, the demand exists.
density can be achieved with a good mixture of housing and i also agree with the point that Austin seems to need more housing - especially central housing.
so instead of fighting higher-priced developments, i suppose it would make sense to be encouraging more high-density developments at a variety of price points.
just my non-expert 2 cents.
I'm always amazed how everyone assumes that people with Money in Austin either made magic money at Dell or moved in from California....that might of been true in 2000, but those people left with the bubble..people with money now mostly earned it...lots of successful small business owners and professionals in Austin.
We gotta stop hating on people in the condos...u start with the big fancy places...u get more business/retail/stores downtown...u make more jobs downtown and the next thing u know u got people who work downtown who want rentals and boom...some rich person decides to build rentals.
Smart growth is it...its time for Downtown to grow up...literally...we need density.
It is our Density.
i was obviously making general overstatements about cal and dell, but i do believe the biggest industries here are: hi-tech, military, education, government, and law, now which of those industries do you think make money, cause it ain't all of em
btw- The Austinist Party Lair will be located in the Springs building, so we are all for it
Man do a search on the high dollar houses on Travis CAD and you'll see most are Doc's and Lawyers...high tech makes a lot of middle/upper middle class people
duh. how did i forget docs? point being, we know where much of the money comes from, not all, but much. no biggie. and all you doctor(intenionally singular) who read austinist, please do not come at me with your "the HMO's are ruining us. it is very hard to make money, etc" and all you pilots save your emails, too. gas prices, lower fares, blah blah blah
I will concede, that the richest are high tech...but most people in tech are making 40-100k..not bad living but not millionaires.
Off topic to be sure, but if you have any interest in the direction Austin's public transportation is going (specifically, the commuter rail), check out M1EK's blog. A bit inflammatory at times, but it's a very interesting and very informed read.
Novare's development amenities list.
I live in Tarrytown about 4 blocks from Mopac.
We bought a smallist 1800 sqft house for $340k in 2003.
In the last 6 months, the 3 houses immediately around us were all bought by developers for $330-$370 and are being TORN DOWN.
In their place are 4600 sqft 2-story houses built lot-line-to-lot-line that will go for $900-$1.2M.
So compared to this craziness, $250k is not that much for West Austin.
rubbish.
first, you clearly haven't been paying attention to the housing market recently. those prices really aren't that ridiculous -- low, if anything, for a brand new condo in a bustling city center.
second, if your criticism really is true and there are too many condos being built downtown, in theory this should satisfy demand and drive down prices sharply -- that's one of the main reasons i haven't bought one yet, myself.
third, you're ignoring one of the most important reasons to live downtown -- the crappy austin traffic situation. in the world of rising gas prices and more and more miserable commutes, i'm all for the city center increasing in population. i worked downtown last year, and rented an apartment there so i could walk to work -- i ended up filling my gas tank every other month. it was worth the premium. seems pretty consistent with the whole austin ethic to me. at the very least, it's a damn sight better than suburbia.
agree with all. glad yuo cared enough to comment, seth.
Thanks Sean, I appreciate the kind words. The full name of my blog is "M1EK's Bake-Sale of Bile"; which should be a hint of some vitriol. No hint as to transportation, though; but "M1EK's Bus-Stop of Bile" just doesn't seem as catchy.
yo, jello mold! a very tricky thing the renter/ the buyer/ the developer. who's at gain? well all that high dollar crap downtown (eg) gables, amli, west, etc. is at 99% occupancy and G-D are they proud of their stuff at 2.25- 3.00 / foot. so would i rather give my money to someone who's gonna run with no return or dump my savings into something that would be mine...well sort of mine? how the hell did our parents afford to feed us? dios mio