Austin | 600 W. 5th St. (Horizon Bank) | 223 Feet | 16 Floors |Complete
 

I'm gonna go ahead and create a thread for this project because the available info suggests a significant tower. If I get around to it, I'll move the posts from the update thread to this one.

The new news is that the site plan application went into the formal review phase on Friday. Based on how these things usually go, the formal site plan filing will be available online late this week or next week. That should give us height/floor count/square footage/uses info. Here's the site plan:

https://abc.austintexas.gov/web/perm...ertyrsn=128678

I forgot about TOWER's recent article about this project. Instead of moving previous update thread posts here, I'll just link to his article:

https://austin.towers.net/at-fifth-a...atter-of-time/

From the article:

What is:
https://austin.towers.net/wp-content...te-780x440.jpg

What could be:
https://austin.towers.net/wp-content..._4-780x545.jpg
https://austin.towers.net/wp-content..._2-780x471.jpg

This one is 15-stories. Yawn, but it's better than the little bank on the site now.
It's 9 levels of office over 6 levels of parking. Let the bitching begin...

Carnac the Magnificent says it will most likely be blue.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped.../21/Carnac.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnac_the_Magnificent

That's a better ratio than most...

What a waste of a site not empeaded by a CVC.

This.

Honestly -- don't they know they're leaving money on the table?

Wow... so much for all the noise about firms desperately wanting office space downtown.

I'm guessing this will have a dreaded blank wall on the west elevation since it abuts the neighboring building. It would be nice if the ABC Bank Building next door could grow up also. And for that matter, the BB&T Bank across the street.

It appears that the surface parking lot will disappear which is a plus. But they are not seeking a density bonus to increase the FAR - they are only using the standard CBD 8:1 FAR. Hence 15 floors. Since they don't need the density bonus, they don't have to provide public benefits like Great Streets. Although the filing does say there will be streetscape improvements. The new building will also have a drive through bank similar to the current configuration.
One thing I noticed in the filing, was that Intel owned this site from 2000 to 2004. Maybe this was once planned as the site of their failed chip design center.

I'm fine with the height of this one. It's turning what's effectively a parking lot into a 15-story tower. The parking ratio isn't absurd (405 Colorado,) and the inclusion of a drive-through bank into the tower is a nice use of space. Height-wise, it should fit in with the rest of the buildings in that area - here's an updated massing from Towers.

https://austin.towers.net/wp-content..._2-780x568.jpg

The Intel proposal was for two buildings. It was originally called Museum Park. The developer acquired all the permits and then sold the land to Intel who then planned their HQ there.

Based on the original site plan that's still online (it even includes the elevations with the heights) - the two buildings would have sat catty-corner from each other. There was the one that occupied the federal courthouse site that wasn't completed and set unfinished until what I started to call the "Intel stump" was finally demolished in 2007, and the other would have been located where the Horizon Bank is today.

I was going to upload the site plan and elevations to Facebook to post them here, but the files are too big and didn't size down nicely, so I'll just post the City of Austin links. The elevations and site plan are files 010 and 011 in one of these two links, I forget which.

Garage/building - https://abc.austintexas.gov/web/perm...ertyrsn=227274

Building - https://abc.austintexas.gov/web/perm...ertyrsn=227274

This link below also included one of the renderings for the project that I had saved years back. This also includes an aerial photo (look how bare downtown was) that includes some massings models of the project. This shows 4 blocks as being part of the project, which I didn't realize was the case. I guess the media only ran with the story after Intel bought the two lots for their HQ.

http://scherinvest.com/proj_01_ss.html
These are the only two renderings I have saved of the project. I think this first one was the one that the original developers were working on. They don't look the same as the 2nd, which matches more closely to what is in the site plan. It's crazy to me to think that this project is now at least 20 years old.

https://scontent-dfw5-2.xx.fbcdn.net...09&oe=5D5B87B6

https://scontent-dfw5-2.xx.fbcdn.net...41&oe=5D599570

Scher Investments originally planned a 30-story glass tower that would incorporate a new home for the Austin Museum of Art, thus the name. That was in 2007/2008. A local firm, Aquila Commercial, was marketing it for prelease. The original concept for Museum Tower (pre-Intel) is below and would have been located on the Courthouse block. It was 30 stories but had an extended glass 'crown' so it would look taller.

https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums...ps0bpab2mr.jpg

deleted

I think you have courthouse blocks confused. The bottom rendering is for the block south of Republic Square, that was earlier owned by Austin Museum of Art (now the Contemporary) that was historically reserved for a courthouse in the Waller Plan, and for a brief time was going to be a County Courthouse.

The Intel project was going to be built on the Federal Courthouse on the San Antonio side of Republic Square. It also included three other blocks: another building on the Horizon Bank site and two stand alone parking garages. One was going to be where 360 Condos is now, and I think the other was the IBC Bank site. Actually, I think the IBC bank site might have been a building and the Horizon Bank site was a parking garage, but I'm not sure - my memory is failing in old age.

You are right. I am mis-remembering. I went back and looked at the site plan from the original marketing brochure, below. I mixed up the 'museum' names.

https://i1072.photobucket.com/albums...psjazwtm9v.png

Do you remember the Intel Shell demo back in 2007, to make way for the new courthouse? Skip to the 0:50 mark to see the actual implosion.

• Video Link

Back on topic....the reason this building isn't going to take advantage of height that the lack of a CVC allows is because Horizon is building it for themselves, with some lease space included. Banks are more conservative with their own money. Skyscrapers are expensive.

This article included an elevation. I had to mess around with it a bit, but I finally was able to save the largest size image they had.

This is showing 16 floors. I zoomed in on the numbers and flipped the image around to be able to read the heights, and it looks like it's 212 feet 9 inches to the highest part of the roof. So, rounding up, it should be 213 feet with 16 floors.

https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/n..._news_headline

https://scontent-dfw5-2.xx.fbcdn.net...e2&oe=5D6FD583

I like it. Even though I know it's a black-and-white elevation, it makes me wish this tower had black glass - not enough of that in Austin.

Its ok...there's not much you can really do with a 16 story building I suppose. The textured top with the name plate is nice. And oh lookie, a notch. Can't get enough of those....or could we???:rolleyes:

That’s, um, where the airstream trailer goes.