A Walkable Downtown? Surely You Jest!

Aiming to make our downtown a so-called "coherent city core," Austin city officials announced last week the hiring of a professional firm to concoct a downtown planning strategy:

The firm would study just about everything: ways to encourage taller, denser buildings; the potential for redeveloping government-owned land; transit options, such as a downtown streetcar or light-rail system; and infrastructure needs, such as better sidewalks.
"We need to be looking at all of these parts together, in a more holistic way," Wynn said.

As with most beaureaucratic measures, one of the chief obstacles to any real downtown development is apathy - but not so with this plan, says Council Member Brewster McCracken:

McCracken said the strategy will be put into ordinance form, with specific goals for the city to meet, so that it won't just sit on a shelf and collect dust. The study could take 12 to 18 months, he said, and will be a vision for the next five to 10 years of downtown growth.

The investigation committee's aim is to combine several much-hullabahood goals: Wynn's target of 25,000 downtown residents in the next decade (we're at just over 5,000 now), last year's Envision Central Texas plan to curtail urban sprawl, and the hotly-contested rail plan. Of the last point, Williamson County state Rep. Mike Krusee claims that cheaper, quicker-to-construct alternatives to 2000's shot-down light rail plan now exist, citing Portland, Oregan's new downtown rail system that was deployed in "a matter of weeks."

Another possible hindrance, reports the Statesman, the Austin's antiquanted development code, written back when the city was considerably smaller:

Austin's development code is pegged to the small town Austin once was and needs to be brought up to date, developer Perry Lorenz said.
"In most places in the downtown core, there is no reason to limit height, especially when you're trying to get more density," he said.

McCracken said the planner will look for ways to add height, such as developers getting extra height in exchange for building nicer sidewalks or a public plaza nearby. He hopes clearer rules will avoid public battles like the recent dispute over the tall Spring condominium project planned for Third and Bowie streets.

Businesses have long complained that the city doesn't earmark enough money for the Great Streets program, which is supposed to help pay for the wider sidewalks, trees and plazas necessary for a pedestrian-friendly downtown. "That type of streetscape is very expensive to build, and it's not within the budget of most private sector developers," said Charles Heimsath, president of Capitol Market Research, a real-estate consulting group.

It would seem that in order for the city to gain any real traction on this land issue, both sides need to come together and reach some sort of equitable compromise: flipping an urban loft space for $600,000 surely must leave some room for surplus development.

* Image of new Milago lofts at urbanspacerealtors.com

Contact the author of this article or email tips@austinist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Allen Y Chen in News on December 13, 2005 1:30 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Declan McManus

Kenny--

The only reason I don't see West Campus becoming a true urban core is the transient nature of students. Every couple of years, commercial businesses have to completely renew their client base. If you're a coffee shop, bar, or food establishment, you lose a large portion of your base at graduation. What was cool for the Class of '05 may not be cool for the Class of '09, so you have to be more flexible (which is a good thing, but a lot of businesses don't seem to understand this).

Also, with students walking/biking everywhere, traffic is even worse around campus than most other non-highway areas of Austin. Its just a fact of life that students are going to always run across the street as the light turns green way more often than "professionals". So as much as downtown traffic sucks, its still better than being around Guadalupe, etc during the day.

Anyway, if they could get some real public transportation in this city (the bus system isn't half bad, but you're stuck in traffic), West Campus could definitely become a Union Square type thing. They just need more commercial spaces in a manner that makes it more than North-South walk on Gaudulupe. Can't have a "square" if you only have 1 side.

Declan McManus

Correction: The most rundown HEB is that dump on the corner of 2222 and Burnet.

Oltorf gets the distinguished ranking of being #2.

Declan McManus

Kristina--

I actually shop at that HEB more than any other HEB in Austin. It is the most rundown HEB even after the work they have done.

And, hey, its not me who is making a sweeping generalization about the people who shop there-- its the people who did the studies for both HEB and Randalls. If you'd like, I can get my friends' firm's contact info and you can ask them for more details.

Just next time you walk into the other HEBs and Randalls around town, like the Randalls on 35th st that was redone about 2 years ago, ask yourself why the one on Oltorf still has lighting from 1973 and a front facade that is from 1985.

kenny

urban downtown? west campus is the future of austin's urban core. there are roughly 10 buildings going up in west campus sporting residential and commercial space. more buildings are sure to come. a mix of mid-priced rentals and higher end condos will ensure a mix of incomes - students at first, but surely others attracted by the variety of lifestyles and businesses as density slowly increases. i can easily see west campus become similar to union square given about 25 yrs.

Kristina B

Hi Declan!

I guess you aren't one of the "clientele" of the Congress & Oltorf HEB, but guess what?? I am! So that was maybe a little rude to sweepingly generalize a vaguely negative statement about all the people who shop at that HEB... just a thought.

Further, you're wrong. Just in the last year and a half, that HEB has remodeled, expanding their produce section and adding (and then quickly expanding) a Whole-Foods-Like section of the store.

Have a nice day!

Declan McManus

AM is dead on.

Whole Foods is awesome if you live downtown, because if you live downtown, you can actually afford $4 for a roll of toilet paper.

For what its worth, both Randalls and HEB have hired architects/designers/consultants in the past few years to do surveys and studies on remodeling the interiors/exteriors of their existing Austin stores. The reason the Oltorf HEB is extremely shitty is because the clientele that goes there -- the company found that if they gutted the building and made it like the Hancock Center HEB, the people of South Austin would actually assume prices for things like milk and toiletpaper went up, because it would appear to be a "high end" supermarket like Whole Foods/Central Market. So, they left the building in its current state and focused their efforts elsewhere.

allen

ahhh. m1ek - yours was the site i was meaning to link

M1EK

Mike Krusee is an assclown. The 2000 light rail plan would have been friggin' awesome, and no, you can't build real rail for as cheap as streetcars, but streetcars don't go as fast; and generally share a lane with cars, meaning, STUCK - IN - TRAFFIC.

Portland BUILT - BOTH. FIRST, they built light rail to bring people TO where they wanted to go (which we're not doing with commuter rail), and THEN they built a streetcar system to distribute passengers downtown, but the light rail remains the main component of their transit system.

But I'm sure glad the taxpayers of Austin could foot the bill for your constituents to get a crappy commuter rail line, Mike.

am

Dear City Council,

Have you every tried to walk to the grocery store from downtown?

Seriously have you been to the "downtown" HEB?

Oltorf and Congress is a long ass walk.

Put an HEB as close to 6th & Congress as possible and you will have 25,000 people there in no time.

call me

-am