[KevinFromTexas]

http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news....257263.735372

Cap Metro narrows Plaza Saltillo development contenders to two
Posted: 6:53 p.m. Monday, May 19, 2014

By Ben Wear - American-Statesman Staff

Looking to transform Austin’s old rail yard into a dense and lively “transit village,” Capital Metro’s board Monday narrowed to two the contenders for the right to develop the land.

Saltillo Collaborative envisions a dense collection of buildings, most of them 50 to 70 feet high, covering the seven blocks. Most of the development would be apartments, with at least 25 percent of them in the “affordable category,” with ground floor retail spaces. In a slide presentation from Saltillo Collaborative released by Capital Metro, that term affordable is defined as rents set for households with 30 to 60 percent of Austin’s median family income.

The site also would have garage parking, parking on top of a couple of buildings, surface lots and street parking, a total of about 800 spaces. And Saltillo foresees having a 120-foot-high hotel and a “creative office” building near I-35.

Endeavor and its partners also portray a development of closely packed buildings, again with 25 percent affordable housing (half of it in a building reserved for seniors) and ground floor retail. That group says their development would have about 800 apartments, a 60,000-square-foot, full-service grocery store and about 50,000 square feet of retail.