If all goes as planned, the Downtown skyscraper planned for 98 Red River Street will be Austin's tallest (for a while, anyway). For now, its address is also its name.
In addition to looming ever-so-slightly over its many brethren in the Rainey Street Historic District, 98 Red River will rise to will rise to more a height between 1,022 and 1,034 feet, which would make it the tallest tower in Texas. It would also make it Austin's first "supertall"—a building taller than 984 feet.
While the site of 98 Red River has been fenced off and prepped for some time, there are still some details to be worked out—including a finalizing a construction loan, according to the Austin American-Statesman. Nevertheless, a LinkedIn post announcing that the building's permits have been approved created a hubbub duly reported in local real estate blog Towers. That post, in turn, inspired some reporting at the Statesman, which found government records listing the project's estimated cost as $520 million.
While we don't know if things will pan out this way, plans for the 2.3 million-square-foot skyscraper include a 240-unit hotel, 700,000 square feet of office space, 332 residences and 43,000 square feet of retail space.
When completed, 98 Red River will be taller than The Independent, which rises to 690 feet, as well as the under-construction Sixth and Guadalupe, which will reign supreme, if briefly, at 874 feet tall when finished.
The supertall at 98 Red River will join a number of new and planned skyscrapers in the Rainey Street Historic District downtown, including Vesper, the Modern Austin Residences, River Street Residences, and 80 Rainey. The 750-foot-tall Conrad Residences Austin and Conrad Austin hotel will be built nearby.
Developers on the project are Dallas' Lincoln Property Company and San Antonio's Kairoi Residential. New York’s Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, Dallas design studio HKS, Austin's TBG Partners, and Nudge Design are, respectively, the building, interior, landscape, and urban design architects. WGI Austin is the civil engineer.