COVID-19 vaccinations, the resignation of Austin Police Chief Brian Manley, and frigid temperatures and icy roads that left more than 11,000 Austin Energy customers without power Friday morning and caused a nasty pileup on I-35 edged out development news for much of the week, but we all know the building never really stops. Here are a few stories that caught our eye.
A place called George
As residents of the MLK neighborhood in East Austin are no doubt aware, a residential development is ramping up in the area between Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard and Manor Road. More specifically, developer StoryBuilt is preselling spots in a planned community at 2211 EM Franklin Avenue, which it plans to call George, after a teenage parrot that lives at Austin Zoo. (Some of StoryBuilt's other Austin developments are called Willa, Clementine, Lucy, Frank, and Frank West, so you see the pattern here.) The $50 million development will offer 80 townhomes and 36 single-family homes. The townhomes will range from 626 to 1,700 square feet, with one to two bedrooms, and single-family homes will be 1,468 to 1,728 square feet in size, with two or three bedrooms. Prices range from $290,000 for one-bedroom townhouses to three-bedroom homes in the low $600,000 range.
New strategy to address homelessness
While Austin voters (for some reason) get to vote on whether the city should recriminalize camping, reclining, and that sort of thing (thus making life more difficult for people experiencing homelessness), new Homeless Strategy Officer Diana Grey told the City Council recently that her office will follow Houston's lead by addressing the issue with a housing-first model. To that end, the City Council also approved the purchase of a fourth hotel for housing people experiencing homelessness in the area.
Redevelopment at the former site of the Frisco Shop
A 300,000-square-foot, five-story multifamily project will take the place of the former Frisco Shop, the storied diner on Burnet Road that closed in 2018 after 65 years in business. Community Impact reported Tuesday that developer Oden Hughes will build the 314-unit complex, where 18 units will go to households earning 60 percent less than the average median Austin income. Permits for four multifamily buildings and a six-story parking lot at the site have been filed with the city, according to the CI story.
Another (and another) green world
In more redevelopment news, the outdoorsy version, Austin Towers' James Rambin reported that new plans are in the for not one but two local greenways (that's what we're calling them now, right?). On Wednesday, Austin's planning commission approved a Parks and Recreation department 3,000 feet of lakeside trail to be incorporated into the existing hike-and-bike trail created adjacent to the decommissioned Holly Street Power Plant. Meanwhile, an early draft of the Central Williamson Creek Greenway, a plan to restore and revamp its namesake waterway (often overlooked for its showier Waller Creek/Waterloo and Shoal Creek counterparts), was recently released for public input. You have until February 22 to weigh in on this one.
Why walk the line when you can walk online?
Speaking of lakeside rambles, AIA Austin and the Austin Foundation for Architecture just released Happy Trails, the installment of its online Guide to Austin Architecture tours. The new tour leads viewers along the Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail on its loop around Lady Bird Lake, stopping at significant points to relate sagas of history and development on both sides of the river. Beats trying to navigate icy streets with a million or so other Texans.
