Mixed-use tower planned for downtown Austin
A Chicago-based company plans to build a tower with apartments and office space at East Fourth and Brazos streets in downtown Austin, according to documents filed with the city.
CA Ventures is the developer proposing the project on a half block at the northeast corner of the intersection. The site currently houses Brazos Hall, an event venue that operates in a 1900s warehouse building, as well as an office building.
Richard Suttle, a lawyer working on the project, said a mixed-use development "makes sense downtown and especially in this area.“
“Round the clock activity makes for a vibrant and safe environment,” Suttle said. “There continues to be increasing interest in mixed use, high density projects like this one."
CA Ventures did not return calls seeking comment about when it plans to start construction, whether financing is in place, when Brazos Hall would be demolished, or other details. The tower would be the first project in Austin for the Chicago real estate investment and development firm.
Documents filed with the city show plans for a tower with more than 60 stories and potentially rising about 820 feet tall.
At that height, the building would be taller than the mixed-use apartment and office tower now under construction at West Sixth and Guadalupe Streets. That 66-story tower, named 6 X Guadalupe, is in line to become Austin’s tallest building, eclipsing the 58-story Independent condominium tower downtown that is known as the “Jenga Tower“ for its distinctive stacked design.
The Fourth and Brazos tower is being designed by Goettsch Partners, according to the city filings. A message left with the Chicago-based architecture firm was not returned. Officials with Austin-based dwg, an urban landscape design firm involved with the project, declined to comment, citing a confidentiality agreement.
Along with apartments and office space, plans call for ground-floor retail space and 16 levels of parking.
Charles Heimsath, a real estate consultant who conducts market-demand studies for developers’ proposed projects, has said the ever-taller buildings planned for downtown recently signal a new era of development, one in which buildings will be larger, and almost always include a mix of uses.
The Fourth and Brazos tower “further confirms that most future development will be mixed-use in downtown Austin, following the archetypes for development seen in larger cities like New York and Singapore,” Heimsath said. “Mixed-use is a much more efficient and sustainable development type, and particularly attractive to tenants when coupled with ground-floor retail and amenity space.”
The proposed tower is in a part of downtown where other projects are being built or planned. A 32-story tower is under construction at Fifth and Brazos that will have two hotels with a total of 400 rooms, along with 274 apartments and ground-floor retail space. The tower, called Fifth & Brazos, is being developed by Chicago-based Magellan Development Group and Ryan Companies, and was designed by bKL Architecture.
The northern half of the block at Fourth and Brazos is home to the Brazos Lofts condominiums. Austin-based Cielo Property Group bought the Brazos Lofts at 411 Brazos Street in January.
Cielo co-founder Rob Gandy has said the site is “a prime location that can accommodate far more people and activity as downtown continues to grow.”
To the south of Brazos Hall, Los Angeles-based Karlin Real Estate in October purchased the 112-unit Railyard Condominiums for $104 million, with plans for a future high-rise project.
