Austin Urban Development Round-Up

Decided to actually rise from the blogging "grave" today, and post some things.

Browsing through the news-stand today, and there's several significant Austin development-related articles out there, especially for dense, more urban development.

Apparently a transit-oriented development of a kind is still in the works up in Cedar Park, one of the last segments of Avery Park to be built out. Gary Newman, the president of land development for Waterstone, the developer, says they're looking at making a development similar to the Mueller community in central Austin, with a mix of townhomes, condos, and varieties of single-family housing, with some retail incorporated, too, though they don't expand into specifics.

They're banking on the MetroRail Red Line to allow for this denser development. Plans are to break ground by as early as the 2nd Quarter of 2010. Seems like just the kind of development the northern suburbs need; something denser, much more of a proper place for this kind of development than Mueller.

Developer plans two subdivisions near Avery Ranch - Community Impact


(Community Impact)

As well, a planned development on East Riverside seems to be raising the ire of Town Lake NIMBYs but getting props from everyone else, including affordable housing advocates, with city council members not decided how they're going to vote on whether to grant the developer an exception to the height-limit rules on lands fronting Town Lake.

Doesn't seem like the Save Town Lake NIMBYs have much footing here in opposition, other than that granting Grayco, the developer, height exceptions to build 90ft. tall units in the core of the development, instead of the mandated 60ft. Of course, what they really need to understand is that the best way to preserve and keep up the Town Lake waterfront is not to keep it as an isolated park, but to integrate it into the fabric of an urban community. And that to do that, there's going to have to be density; 90ft. buildings are really not that tall. Especially when Grayco is providing for 60 affordable-housing units; the Statesman even quotes an affordable-housing advocate as saying they're all for the project. It's definitely better than the suburban-like sprawl that inhabits that part of E. Riverside.


(artist's rendering, Pat Lopez)

Currently, no city council member has come out and said how they'll vote Thursday, but we can hope that they'll understand that allowing this development to go as planned will be a big boon to Town Lake and to Austin.

Fight brewing over East Riverside development - Austin American Statesman

What Austin Could Look Like Part II... Crestview Station

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Airport at Lamar, that's where Austin's first attempt at Transit-Oriented Development is supposed to be built. Well, apparently the proper intersection is Lamar at Justin, but who knows of Justin Ln., outside of the Brentwood and Crestview neighborhoods?


(artist's rendering)

It's to be called Midtown Commons at Crestview, a 73-acre site in total, being completed in phases, consisting of 900 apartments and 64,000 sq. ft. of commercial space. Its just two miles north of UT, four north of downtown; currently, it has greater bus access than the Triangle, with five bus lines down Lamar next to it: the local 1, the limited 101 and crosstown routes 300, 320, and 350. Going north or south on Lamar, bus frequencies are still less than 7 minutes on weekdays, similar to the Triangle, but with additional service every 10 minutes to East Austin, every and every 30 to Northcross and Highland Malls, as well as down I35. It's 15 minutes from UT, and 20 minutes from Downtown.

Don't want to plug this realtor or anything, but a cool look around Crestview Station:



Along with Airport and Lamar, the City of Austin designated five other areas as TOD Districts in the city, along the Red Line. Each of these district groups the land involved into five different categories, TOD mixed-use, corridor mixed-use, live/work flats, high-density apartments, and medium-density apartments, in descending density.

• Crestview Station Plan


• Lamar/Justin District Plan
  

One of the more curious things will be to see how the existence of this TOD development effects the suburban neighborhoods around it. Crestview, to the northwest, is one of the first post-war suburbs of the city, and for a while existed as an old-timey place to live; in a time-warp of sorts. As well, right across Lamar from the TOD is Highland, which has been going downhill for the last several years, as more and more stores leave Highland Mall, Austin's grande dame of the malls. TOD is almost diametrically opposed to the style and set of ideas that gave rise to both these auto-centric neighborhoods, and the mall that was their centerpiece.

Can this TOD create a new center for the communities in the area, a more urban one?

Austin Chronicle - TOD in Crestview (2006)

Next...consequences of commuter rail? A first-hand look at TOD in Austin?

MetroRail Article I'd Never Seen

Maybe it's just that I'm extra jaded today, but I thought this article (Metro Jacksonville), an overview of CapMetro's MetroRail Red Line, and the development around it, is relatively naive. Never seen it before, either.

MJ is advocating a Red Line-style DMU line as a replacement for Jacksonville's proposed BRT lines. They put it forward as

>...an affordable alternative for a traditional light rail plan that was rejected by Austin voters back in 2000.

Ha.