Another day, another contender for newest tallest Downtown tower. Oh, Austin.
The skyscraper in the works at 311 East Second Street, basically across the street from the Austin Convention Center, is the latest to enter the race to the tippy top, hotel-condo division. Developer Intracorp Texas, a division of Vancouver’s Intracorp Homes, plans a building that's 750 feet tall for the site, which will be the new home of Conrad Residences and Conrad Austin hotel, a Hilton brand. Unless another combination hotel and residences comes along and is somehow completed before it, the Conrad building will be the tallest of its type in Austin.
At that height, the building would also be simply the tallest in Austin (currently the 58-floor Independent), but Sixth and Guadalupe, under construction at its namesake intersection and scheduled to deliver next year, will tower over them all. The office-residential building will be 875 feet tall, though it will have 66 stories—only one more than the Conrad tower.
The top 26 floors of the Conrad will be devoted to Conrad Residences Austin: 136 condos with one to four bedrooms. Below the residences will be Conrad Austin, a luxury hotel with 330 rooms. The 573,000-square-foot tower will also have 10,000 square feet of indoor/outdoor amenity spaces, retail, restaurants and bars. Intracorp is also partnering with Denver-based hospitality company Miller Global on the building.
The developers have requested a downtown density bonus for the tower from the city. Due to a not-uncommon combination of voting requirements and appointee underattendance, the Design Commission could not formally recommend the bonus, but the decision will move forward to a City Council vote nevertheless. If approved, the bonus would increase the building's allowable floor-to-area ratio from 8:1 to 25:1, allowing around 390,000 square feet of additional space in exchange for Intracorp's payment of about $4.8 million in fees in lieu of affordable housing. Intracorp will also relocate the Leonard and Vida East house, a historic landmark at 307 East Second Street.
The project architect is Texas firm Page, and Houston-headquartered Rottet Studio is the interior designer. Tulsa-based Flintco will be the general contractor. The anticipated groundbreaking is late this spring. Projected costs and the estimated completion date have not been released.
Intracorp Texas is the developer for the Third and Shoal office building and 44 East condos downtown and South Austin's One Oak condos and Congress Lofts at St. Elmo.
