St. Austin Catholic Parish and School’s recent redevelopment of a $44 million school and ministry facility at 2026 Guadalupe Street, includes a lease agreement that provides for nearly 200 units of affordable housing.
The parish leased an acre of parish property to multifamily developer Greystar to help fund the school’s redevelopment project, which is adjacent to the University of Texas at Austin campus. The deal requires Greystar to include almost 200 affordable units in the 29-story, 990-bed housing tower it built on the leased property, for which St. Austin traded some of its ground lease revenue.
Additional funding for the redevelopment project came from $30 million in tax-exempt bank debt and $9 million of taxable bonds purchased by the Diocese of Austin. Some 88 percent of the total cost is expected to be covered by the ground lease payments, which will provide a revenue stream for the parish and diocese for nearly 100 years under the terms of its lease to Greystar.
“What I fear is that if we're not smart, we will create an intergenerational inequity where my generation and some of your generations are able to make the decision to stay [in Austin], but others will not,” Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said at a ribbon-cutting ceremony. “Partnerships like this, visionary ideas like this, is exactly what we need to keep this place the place we love.”
“At St. Austin, we are a committed, compassionate community of faith, focused on building bridges and supporting our larger community, while working to alleviate suffering, addressing systemic wrongs, and serving all with openness and love,” Father Rene Constanza, who serves as the president of the Paulist Fathers who oversee the parish and school, said.
The school serves pre-K3 through eighth grade, with tuition beginning at around $11,500 for the school year.
