Pursuing better business connections, Economic Development Corporation rebrands as Rally Austin

The Austin Economic Development Corporation has rebranded as Rally Austin, in an attempt to better communicate its goals of helping to create and preserve affordable housing and cultural spaces throughout the city.

The change, which was announced Wednesday, comes as the real estate nonprofit organization is poised to help facilitate some of the most important components of the long-planned redevelopment of Blocks 16 and 18 on East 11th Street. A preferred development group is expected to be selected for that project at Monday’s meeting of the Urban Renewal Board.

The city helped facilitate the creation of the former AEDC in 2020. Since forming, it has used mostly city funding for its $2 million operating budget but is able to operate with more flexibility and speed in creating real estate deals that satisfy the city’s goals related to affordable spaces.

In addition to the city funding, the organization has pursued funding from private businesses and philanthropic organizations that could give it more flexibility in securing future land deals. Contributing groups thus far include Austin Community Foundation, St. David’s Foundation, Wells Fargo and C3 Presents.

To date, the organization has helped to close four deals to preserve or create cultural spaces, including helping the Hole in the Wall music venue secure a new 10-year lease.

“There were two main motivations for our name change, and one is to create a distinct brand that represents our vision for uniting Austin behind our community-centered projects, and our community-driven focus,” said Theresa Alvarez, president and CEO of Rally Austin. “Secondly, we are a real estate nonprofit, so attracting private dollars like St. David’s and Austin Community Foundation is going to allow us to have more flexibility. Our public dollars are restricted, so having some of the flexible dollars to come in … we’ve actually been discussing this for at least two years.”

Looking to the East 11th Street projects, Alvarez said Rally Austin will stay involved through the exclusive negotiating agreement process, followed by helping to secure all available tax credits that can help the developers incorporate as many of the desired community benefits as possible.

“Both teams propose using new market tax credits and housing tax credits, and we all know that application process is lengthy. So there’s still going to be a need for facilitating the complex project,” she said.

David Colligan, chief operating officer of Rally Austin, said the rebranding and forthcoming messaging from the organization is intended to make it easier to connect with business leaders and other relevant entities in the community so they can better understand the organization’s goals.

“We want to speak to small businesses, those cultural venue owners or those who are operators so that they can connect with their property owners and understand programs that we are administering or dollars that we have available and how it is we can work to support,” he said. “When it comes to property owners and those who, especially, are socially conscious, we’re definitely working our way into more of those spaces. We’re working in that direction of capturing the attention of more of the private property owners.”

Colligan said he and other staffers are also planning to look beyond Austin to identify partners in the surrounding counties that have similar goals and complementary resources linked to affordability.

“You’re going to see us talking a lot about regionalism,” he said. “We’re really excited about helping to connect more of our regional partners, reaching out to the Budas, the Round Rocks and Georgetowns, to see what opportunities they have available to also align with our mission and what projects we can help them to deliver to their respective locations.”

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