Quote:
Originally Posted by ahealy
Yeah, Rainey has never been my fav part of downtown, but now it really falls far down the list for me.
It's kind of like the dirty 6th now (just more clean and with resi), no? Every recent transplant or tourist always talks about it like a fly to light, but most locals I know would never go there. There are those little hubs in Austin that are made for tourists and newbies, which every good city does need after all.
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Yeah, I've lived on Rainey for around 8 years now, and I generally agree. I dream that the increased number of residents will help with demand for certain quality-of-life things in the area, but it hasn't happened yet. In my building and a couple other condos here, a surprisingly high proportion of people are in the older crowd of "we lived in Westlake/Terrytown/Hyde Park, our kids graduated high school and we no longer need 4000 sq feet." There's nothing exactly wrong with that, but it's not exactly the crowd that will push to keep Rainey's active nightlife or anything more rowdy than a Pilates studio.
I think Paseo -- for all that the top of the building got value engineered a good bit -- will be great in terms of adding things to the area given the amount of commercial space planned there. IIRC, there are at least four distinct spaces (though that may change depending on specific tenants and how much they lease). Functionally every other building in the area provides (or will provide) very little both in terms of architecture/style, and for keeping Rainey an active area with restaurants and bars.
Case in point, compare the Vesper, the Travis, Camden (or whatever the mid-rise complex is called now), Modern, 700 River, and especially the few hotels along East Ave. Only the Camden has more than a single restaurant or bar, which I've always believed was a bit of a fluke given how fortunate they were that Little Brother bar was happy with 300 sq ft of space. Yet regardless, the Camden has a good amount of ground-level apartments, and none of the others have any other manner of commercial space. IMO, all of these are severely underutilized in terms of commercial space, or more generally just things that benefit people outside of residents/occupants of the respective buildings.
That said, I'd still encourage you to check out Half Step and Little Brother (the scaffolding work on the Camden notwithstanding). Neither are the sort of place you'd go mid-afternoon with your dog, but they'd remained pretty nice places with a different crowd compared to the rest of Rainey.
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