Demolition work for a long-planned, mixed-use project in East Riverside is underway. Heavy equipment operators are reducing to piles of rubble Tempo, an older apartment complex at the northeast corner of East Riverside Drive and Wickersham Lane is being demolished to make way for the first phase of the massive development, the Austin American-Statesman reported.
The planned $4 billion River Park development encompasses 109 acres east of software company Oracle’s headquarters overlooking Lady Bird Lake and is bordered by Roy G. Guerrero Colorado River Metro Park, East Riverside Drive, Pleasant Valley Road, and Country Club Creek.
River Park will be built in phases could eventually include 10 million square feet of new development that includes office, retail, hotel, entertainment, and residential uses, according to the article. Capital Metro's Blue Line light rail is planned to run along East Riverside Drive.
Dallas' Presidium is developing River Park with private markets investment manager Partners Group, based in Switzerlan.
Plans for the development's first phase show 370 apartments, more than 400,000 square feet of office space, and 12,000 square feet of retail space, the Statesman reported previously. It will be built on 15 acres east of Wickersham Lane, along Riverside Drive and looks to include a 2-acre park east of Wickersham Lane and adjacent to Country Club Creek.
Presidium's master plan calls for more than 30 acres of publicly accessible open space, parkland, and urban trails leading into Roy Guerrero Park.
The planned removal of what is sometimes called naturally occurring affordable housing and redevelopment against a background of gentrification in the East Riverside area prompted protests and pushback against the project over the years. River Park is one of many planned and under-construction projects that have transformed the East Riverside corridor from IH-35 to Benn White Boulevard in the past two decades — part of a wider advance of development from west of the interstate to the east.
While the 252-unit Tempo is currently the only multifamily complex being leveled, demolition of more apartments is planned.
