[KevinFromTexas]

Update. It sounds like a good idea. They're trying to get ahead of rental rate hikes in 6 years when 70 percent of the contracts for the state's leased space is up.

http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-..._comments_list

Capitol complex could get a new look
Texas agency to vote on master plan that would mix government and private enterprises.

By Laylan Copelin
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Updated: 7:42 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 16, 2011
Published: 9:14 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 15, 2011

On Wednesday, the Texas Facilities Commission - which thinks it has found a way to pay for such an undertaking - is scheduled to vote on a new master plan for state facilities.

It is the first official step for a concept, unveiled as a trial balloon in May, that would involve the private sector in fully developing the Capitol complex, from 11th Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, as a mixture of government and private enterprises.

The plan imagines a new north gateway to the Capitol complex at Congress Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, including the possibility of a civic space - another museum perhaps - across from the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in the complex and the Blanton Museum of Art on the University of Texas campus. A boulevard would lead from the gateway to the Capitol.

Agency staffers recently uncovered many of the same ideas - a grand north entrance and boulevard, for example - in a 1956 master plan on the shelves of the Austin History Center.

The state is paying $42.6 million annually to lease 3 million square feet of space in Travis County. Two-thirds of that total space could be consolidated into existing and three new state-owned buildings, according to the report.

"If they were on the ground today," Dukes said, "we could fill them all."

The report also assumes that lease rates will increase over the next six years as 70 percent of the state's leases expire. Today the state's average rental rate is $16.28 per square foot, compared with the current market rate of $21.

"If we're not in front of it, what's going to happen when the majority of our portfolio expires?" Dukes asked.

Over the past 20 years, Dukes said, the state spent $500 million on leases in Travis County. The state built its last office building in 2000. Since then, Dukes said, the state's lease costs have increased about 250 percent.

At least one, maybe two of these model buildings seem to be about 500 feet tall. The white building with the barrel vaulted roof to the right is 242 feet tall, and the model next to it is at least twice as tall. By the way, the 2nd tall model across the street from the Bullock Museum is the same block that the planetarium is planned for. So maybe they're considering pairing the tower with the museum to help get the museum built. The other tall model to the left seems to be around 325 feet or so.