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SXSW Announces a Couple Hundred More Showcasing Bands for 2010 [Lots of Austin Bands in the Mix]
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Preview: Legs Against Arms EP Release [Club de Ville / Saturday]
Pecan Street Project Gets $10.4 Million Stimulus Grant
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Ardent Residential plans to demolish the 140-unit Bull Creek Apartments built in 1968 and construct a new complex. Texan Properties is similarly demolishing the Shoal Creek Apartments and rebuilding new apartments. Grandview Street Partners has a similar plan for condos on 32nd and Grandview. This is not really a surprise. Few apartment complexes are built to last, and the fact that these survived as long as they have is impressive. Most complexes being built today probably won't last half that long. Austin has a lot of this type of apartments and most of them are going to get torn down and replaced with new apartments over time. As Austin's urban core grows, this gives us a chance to convert the suburban apartments of the 60s, 70's, 80's and 90's into urban apartments. This requires more than merely increasing human density. Unfortunately, increasing density appears to be all that most current developments on the fringes of urbanity aim to do. It may be that they want to be urban (they often refer to their projects as "urban"), but they just don't understand how to do it. Here's how: in addition to increasing density, complexes need to be reoriented vertically and horizontally in order to shift from suburban to urban.
First, to become urban, complexes need to be reoriented vertically from single-use to mixed-use. Suburban uses are segregated: people drive from their homes to their jobs, to the places they shop, then back home. Urban uses are integrated: people live, work and shop in the same building. Sometimes the same person does all three, more often a mixture of people use the same building for different purposes, bringing it the constant stream of changing faces that is a key to urban vitality.
Second, to become urban, complexes need to be reoriented horizontally from inward to outward. Suburban complexes are islands, which no one but the inhabitants needs or wants to enter. As with another new Texan Properties development (shown above), they are oriented inward and engage the street and the surrounding city as minimally as possible. Urban complexes are oriented outward. They engage the street. They feed off it for their vitality, grow stronger and then give back and contribute to the urban landscape.
The City has tried to promote vertical-mixed-use buildings and engagement of the street in its proposed design standards, but these standards have not yet been adopted and it is not clear whether Austin developers will embrace these concepts even after the new standards are in place. Many buildings downtown have started to move toward the urban model, but developments on the fringes are still mainly suburban. A few vanguards have reoriented their structure vertically and horizontally. Hopefully, their success will inspire the next round of developers.
* Image from Thornton City Homes *
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On the same note, the Shortest Ever Explanation of a simple difference between "urban" and "suburban":
http://citycomfortsblog.typepad.com/cities/urb-anim-illo/urb-to-sub-3.gif