AUSTIN | 5th + Colorado | 242 FEET | 18 FLOORS | Complete

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by ahealy

^^Yeah, I hate this building. I get that this is a great sign for Austin's office market, but this shit is so horribly boring and faux urban...it'll probably be razed in 30 years or less.

Agreed. I saw this thread posted for this office tower in Denver, and it's way better than the design for 5th & Colorado. I wouldn't have minded seeing something like this for that lot.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=208109

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Agreed. I saw this thread posted for this office tower in Denver, and it's way better than the design for 5th & Colorado. I wouldn't have minded seeing something like this for that lot.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=208109

That Denver design looks nice, but it is still a smallish office tower built on top of a parking podium that will probably be more visible when the building is completed. What is the deal with the parking podiums on all the new construction? Is it a way for developers to avoid digging deep and expensive garages and still meet minimum parking space requirements for new structures. I am sure this has been discussed here before, but I guess I was not paying attention.

[ahealy]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Agreed. I saw this thread posted for this office tower in Denver, and it's way better than the design for 5th & Colorado. I wouldn't have minded seeing something like this for that lot.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=208109

I think I remember walking by that site last May when we were in Denver. 5th and Colorado looks so temporary and cheap. We really don't have that many open lots to throw away on crap like this. I'm not sure if it's a CODEnext thing or City Council, but it's time to seriously re-write parking requirements for new office projects. I realize without real public transportation it's hard for some to see the practicality of that ....but DAMN, AUSTIN!

[LoneStarMike]

Originally Posted by austlar1

In case nobody noticed, every downtown office building that has gone up in Austin in the past 15 years is built on top of a significant parking podium. I am not sure how this came to be, but I don't know a lot about parking requirements and development codes downtown. All of the tall buildings that went up in the late 1980s were built in a traditional manner with no parking podiums at the base. I guess some of them have parking structures attached, but not all of them do. What happened downtown to require these ugly podiums to be built?

This Feb. 2013 article from the Austin Business Journal addresses your question.

“If you build a big office building, you’re not going to be able to lease space in it without a competitive amount of parking,” [Perry Lorenz] said.

But exactly how much parking qualifies as competitive does change.

When the first round of big buildings went up in Austin, Lorenz said, it was common for developers to only build about one parking spot for every 900 square feet of space.

That changed in the late 1990s and early 2000s when buildings such as 300 West Sixth and the Frost Bank Tower went up. Those included almost suburban amounts of parking — about one spot for every 250 square feet, Lorenz said.

“People fled to those buildings,” he said. “Those new buildings came along, and they just murdered everyone because they had more parking.”

Developers downtown now are building more than the city’s current minimum requirements — about one space per bedroom and one space per 1,375 square feet — just to be safe.

The average today is about one space per each 350 square feet, said Chris Bradford, a development lawyer with Coats Rose and recent appointee to the city’s land code redevelopment committee.

Originally Posted by ahealy

I'm not sure if it's a CODEnext thing or City Council, but it's time to seriously re-write parking requirements for new office projects.!

According to that article, the city is only requiring one parking space per 1,375 sq ft of office space, but the developers are providing one space per 350 sq ft. The city could further reduce the parking requirements, but that won't prevent a developer from building more parking spaces than the city would otherwise require.

[ahealy]

Originally Posted by LoneStarMike

This Feb. 2013 article from the Austin Business Journal addresses your question.






According to that article, the city is only requiring one parking space per 1,375 sq ft of office space, but the developers are providing one space per 350 sq ft. The city could further reduce the parking requirements, but that won't prevent a developer from building more parking spaces than the city would otherwise require.

Thanks LoneStar....I remember reading that now. It would be wise for the city to revise that in a way that rewards them for not including so many spaces. I think most of us can agree there is nothing sexy or timeless about having 8 levels of parking attached to any building. I always wonder what the garages will be used for in the far future....Small aliens? Robots?

[AusTxDevelopment]

Originally Posted by ahealy

Thanks LoneStar....I remember reading that now. It would be wise for the city to revise that in a way that rewards them for not including so many spaces. I think most of us can agree there is nothing sexy or timeless about having 8 levels of parking attached to any building. I always wonder what the garages will be used for in the far future....Small aliens? Robots?

Unfortunately, at this point in time there isn't a city incentive that will offset the higher rents and higher occupancy a downtown office building can achieve with more parking. Tax breaks, subsidies or even cash payments are not enough - the higher rents and occupancy are ongoing for the life of the building (until our transportation issues are resolved, anyway) and unlike incentives they transfer with the sale of the property. Buildings with higher parking ratios sell for more money. Truth is developers are in it for a reasonably quick return on investment - whether it be increased operating income (rents) or higher sales price - and they are not generally interested in the long-term. If it makes them more money, they will continue with high parking ratios. Until Austin increases its public transportation options, parking is going to be valuable for office buildings. And for the record, I'm not disagreeing with you guys or saying I support including lots of parking in new office construction, I'm just stating why it is so prevalent.

Something else no one mentions is the significant parking income generated by downtown office buildings. Unlike suburban office buildings, all downtown buildings charge for parking. Landlords charge the tenants of their buildings between $150 and $300 per parking space, per month. That's a huge revenue generator for a building owner. Add in the transient parking (aka the in-and-out paid parking after hours, etc.) and you are talking some serious cash flow. How do you convince a developer who is trying to maximize his return on investment that he should give that up? It's tough.

When we solve our traffic issues and high parking ratios don't lead to premium rents anymore, you will see developers more willing to reduce the parking in their properties.

[KevinFromTexas]

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=7747

This is why this building bugs me. It doesn't look like it belongs in a major city's downtown, it looks like something in a major city's secondary downtown or along a highway somewhere. You could literally plop this building down in any American city along a highway and it wouldn't look at out of place.

Besides, we already have the Colorado Tower which has too similar a design to this, and is too close to warrant another one. This is worse than having twin Skyhouses.

[Syndic]

I agree, Kevin. It looks like something that belongs further north, around the other generic office buildings.

[KevinFromTexas]

[AusTxDevelopment]

The Austin Business Journal has a timelapse video of the construction equipment moving onto the 5th+Colorado site:

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/bl...-colorado.html

[ivanwolf]

The concrete was being torn up the last two days. Yeah for ugly.

[JoninATX]

Originally Posted by ivanwolf

The concrete was being torn up the last two days. Yeah for ugly.

Yay!!! Lol...

[The ATX]

This is SkyPie's photo of the site prep in the ZaZa thread. I added it here because it also shows the 5th & Colorado progress:

[tie_guy]

Today

[The ATX]

Originally Posted by tie_guy

Today

Since there are no underground parking levels this one will see cement being poured real quick.

[KevinFromTexas]

Building ATX via Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/BuildingATX...type=1&theater

[KevinFromTexas]

Tower crane permit.

ftp://ftp.ci.austin.tx.us/ATD_AULCC/...rane_PLANS.pdf

[corvairkeith]

A handful of columns are up and the crane base is on site.

[The ATX]

Nice update. The ZaZa site on the right in the second photo doesn't look too busy.

[corvairkeith]

Yeah it doesn't look like much has happened on the ZaZa site since they demoed the buildings that used to be there. Part of the construction fence had blown over so I got a few photos today, looks like they put a construction trailer and a port-a-potty there, but that's about it.