A rezoning to support a massive new development designed by the same firm that built NYC’s Hudson Yards picked up a recommendation from the Planning Commission during a meeting on July 8.
If built, the 6.48 acre site at at 500 South Congress would encompass around 950 residential units, 225 hotel rooms, 600,000 square feet of office space and over 125,000 square feet of restaurants, retail shops and grocery stores, as well as pedestrian and bicycle trails. It would replace two office buildings, apartments and beloved longstanding karaoke dive, Ego’s (though there are plans for its preservation.)
The rezoning requested by developer Michael Iannacone, president of the Texas division of global real estate developer Relation, is from CS-1, or commercial liquor sales, to PUD, or Planned United Development.
Planned Unit Developments allow for large developments outside the bounds of what would usually be possible under the city’s land development code, but only under certain conditions. In order to get the zoning, the would-be developer has to prove that their plan would produce something measurably better than what would be possible under the usual standards.
In their more than 110-page report recommending the project, city staff cited benefits like transit access, walkability, a proportionately large number of affordable housing units and the project’s sustainability features, including plans to clean up and restore the section of Bouldin Creek that runs through the property as features that satisfy that requirement.
Bar-going Austinites may be happy to learn that Ego’s will likely be preserved through a part of the plan that will offer low-cost rent for some of the retail space on the property, which Iannacone said would allow for “the next incarnation” of the beloved dive, which has been serving patrons since 1979.
“I wanted there to be a place where you could get a $5 beer,” Iannacone said.
The same report covered some other conditions proposed by various city agencies, some of which have yet to be fully reconciled with the developer.
Richard Suttle, an attorney working on the project, said the developer and the city had “come to an impasse” on a few issues, including requests from the fire department to allow for a fire and EMS station on the property and another from Austin Energy that they remain open to hosting a substation for the city’s electrical grid at some point in the future.
“We don’t take issue with the need,” Suttle said. “But you can’t put a regional facility on one developer.”
Several commissioners questioned Iannacone, who was present at the meeting, on the specific reasons why a fire station would be infeasible on the site. He pointed to frontage issues, saying the development would have “two front doors” on West Riverside and South Congress and otherwise too few viable points of ingress and egress to accommodate fire engines.
Commissioner Greg Anderson introduced the motion to recommend the rezoning, seconded by commissioner Casey Haney, while adding language that recommended against the fire station idea and, instead, would make inclusion of an Austin Energy substation a conditional use allowed under the PUD.
Anderson’s motion passed 9-1, with commissioner Anna Lan voting against. No neighbors signed up to speak for or against the plan during the public comment period.
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