Quote:
Originally Posted by _Matt
Rainey Street as people knew it about 5-10 years ago was an anomaly due to the timing of re-zoning and the credit crunch. The city can't take an old neighborhood street and say "we are converting this to a party district" and expect stakeholder support.
This building creates an actual neighborhood further north on Rainey which is a great thing. Before this, it was a strip of bars that didn't contribute much to the city and the space was being vastly underutilized. The best bars and restaurants are still there. This is much more sustainable as a functioning area, not just evenings and weekends, but all week long.
Also, good architecture is nice, but it is also more expensive for the people living there and prices people out of the market. Building a human scale structure with first floor retail is not a bad thing, even if it is box.
What the area needs are more neighborhood elements within a walkable radius. This seems to be coming with the developments south and towards I-35 and also if Waller Creek towers are executed properly, that will help.
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1) One building does not make a neighborhood. The south side of Rainey has already turned into quite the neighborhood of residential buildings (one of the densest areas of the city), and there was plenty of space in the parking lot to the North to create a bit more without having to demolition any houses.
2) I don't know how many times it needs to be stated on this thread, but there is ONE, limited ground floor retail spot in this project.
It is so apparent from the pictures Urbannizer just posted, and its been clear from all the site plans. Oh...and I can assure you that the rent here is not going to be any less "expensive" as anything else in the area.
3) The vast majority of the area fronting Rainey will be ground floor apartments (going to be interesting to see how that plays out). The parking garage will have a large driveway that pours out on Rainey. The entire side of the street, for an entire block, will be more or less barren for pedestrian activity, except for one tiny spot for retail (on the south side, next to the "boring single family homes"). Certainly none of these elements would be considered by any urbanist on these forums as helping make the project more "human scale" or "walkable."
Yes, Rainey is a new manifestation of Austin culture. But is so unique to our city. Heck, here in the northeast, people I talk with about our awesome city often distinctly remember the cool vibe of the street with a bunch of houses that were turned into restaurants and bars. If we wanted density, we could of easily had that without destroying the houses on Rainey. Look no further to what Shore and Hotel Van Zandt did. It would of been so easy to build high on East Avenue and leave the houses fronting Rainey to maintain the vibe of the area. Now we have what I truly consider the worst development that has come through Austin.
If this project was built anywhere else in downtown, we would hate it. Cookie cutter, no ground floor retail, not very tall, and something that required demolishing something very unique (be it a rather recent addition) to Austin. It is certainly just as bad, if not worse, that anything going up on Red River. It is truly the only project, for me at least, that truly disgusts and disappoints me to what could of been.
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There goes the neighborhood...
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