Quote:
Originally Posted by Novacek
The problem is that Austin Oaks really is this. It's adjacent to and could be considered a part of the Northcross urban center, with its potential rail access and redevelopment potential.
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No, it isn't. This is a small site with only a few potential buildings. The type of area that I'm talking about are things that are much larger like Mueller, the Domain, Highland, Southshore, E. Riverside, and the Brackenridge Tract (and, of course, downtown generally). Each of those are easily the size of 30+ downtown blocks and are primed to be huge catalysts of urban development now, into, or over the next decade.
Small development opportunities like this, 2222/MoPac, Shoal Creek/45th, are not appropriate places for significant towers above around 8 to 10 stories (design and topography taken into consideration allowing for variation). Nor would it be a "positive" thing to see denser development spring up and hop across a highway just because something completely unrelated and impossible to connect in a walkable and actually pedestrian way precisely because of that highway to the other potential dense development across that highway. Building random towers in the middle of nowhere without a cohesive plan for that development that guarantees future towers of similar scale in a dense node does nothing but create a disgusting unsightly atmosphere. I'm sorry, but I for one am 100% glad that Austin is not Houston and I'd like to keep it that way. I want nice big tall towers
where they are appropriate for the scale of the surrounding area.
I mean... come on! Building taller than 10 stories here is not gonna make it more likely that anything taller or more urban is built across the highway, and is it really gonna look at that nice if you're driving down MoPac and suddenly there are 2 or 3 really tall completely divorced from the scale of their surroundings and wait omg look across the street and suddenly you see 2 or 3 more towers across the highway a few miles away around Northcross that are totally divorced from the scale of their immediate context. ... and then you keep driving and maybe a few miles down the road you see another 2 or 3 towers that are totally divorced from reality. It's nasty, unsightly urban sprawl and I am 100% opposed to it. Keep it to VMU pedestrian friendly areas that provide benefits to the direct community, are relatable in scale, and that does not set a horrible re-zoning precedent ... unless you are willing to go
all in on a larg(er) area in a masterplanned manner.