condo project

The W Austin Hotel and Residences is an important project for downtown Austin. It's located at the heart of the emerging Second Street District.

It's a $300 million multi-use project including a much-needed hotel, a prominent condo project, retail, and entertainment.

It's the home of the new Austin City Limits studio.

A new low-rise condo project is set to rise on 9th Street and West Avenue. The $8 million development is close to the Nokonah in a corner of downtown that has seen very little condo development.

For the last two years, a modern condo project on Enfield between Mopac and Lamar has been sitting idle as the result of a dispute between former designer-builder of the project, QMET Building Co.

LLC, and the former owner, Bolter Corp.

Some condo projects are better than others. After reading a story in the New York Times, I can safely say that the worst condo project in the country is not in Austin.

While it's not our primary focus, there are plenty of interesting condo developments rising outside of downtown Austin.

In the portion of East Austin, close to 6th street and within a mile of I-35, a number of affordable, interesting mid-rise projects have risen over the last couple of years.

Earlier this year, the 44-story 360 condo project opened with most of it's 430 units sold out.

A small number of owners held special investor deeds which allowed them to freely rent their units. Now, 20 units have hit the rental market with monthly rents ranging from $1,550 to $3,200.

Last April, developers announced a 4-story, 27 unit development on Barton Springs just east of Lamar adjacent to the train tracks, McDonalds, and Peter Pan Mini Golf.

With pricing starting at $1,000,000, are original reaction was that "the project is a very odd combination of location and pricing that suggests a lack of experience in residential development." At the high end, the units were priced at $900 / SF making this the most expensive development in Austin.

For a while, 2007 seemed like the year of the downtown Austin condo project. Since last August, however, the market has changed.

While most of the projects coming on the market in 2008 are sold out and many of the others are proceeding smoothly, at least three early stage projects for 2009 and beyond seem to have stalled.

As a result of slow progress, we have moved three projects into the pending stage until we receive clear confirmation that they are proceeding -- or if not -- that they have been postponed or cancelled.

The delayed projects are:

The Four Seasons Residences, the new condo project adjacent to the hotel, has released new renderings which provide a great feel for what the building will look like when it is completed.

The renderings also show a slightly modified exterior design: more upper floors have been added with full glass walls.

These replace the lower floors with smaller windows.

The Monarch — billed as the city's first luxury rental high rise tower — is now very far along in the construction process.

Developer ZOM Austin is constructing what was supposed to be a 27 story rental project on 5th just East of Lamar with 297 rental apartments and 8,500 square feet of ground floor retail.