Related Companies’ long-stalled tower on the south shore of Lady Bird Lake is advancing after lying fallow during the pandemic.
Austin officials approved the site plan for One Lady Bird Lake on July 1, clearing the way for the New York-based developer to move on an 18-story tower comprising 298 residential units and ground-floor retail, the Austin Business Journal reported.
Related originally planned to build an office tower on the 3.3-acre site but pivoted to residential in 2023 amid Austin’s record-high office vacancy.
The latest plans call for 507,600 square feet of space, including 494,000 square feet of multifamily, 10,400 square feet of restaurant space and 3,200 square feet of retail. The project will include separate lobbies for its 101 condos and 197 apartments, with units ranging from one to three bedrooms.
New York’s Kohn Pedersen Fox is listed as the architect of record, with landscape design by TBG Partners and engineering by GarzaEMC. The project site, at 208 Barton Springs Road, is a surface lot serving the Hyatt Regency Austin.
The south shore location is part of a broader city-led push to activate downtown’s southern edge with greater density and pedestrian connections. The parcel sits near the Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail and across from the city’s skyline-dominating office towers.
The site plan approval marks a key step forward for Related’s Austin portfolio, which has grown substantially since the initial planning of One Lady Bird but has seen delays on multiple fronts. The firm purchased the One Lady Bird Lake site in 2019 and has planned to start construction in 2023, but market headwinds and a shift in strategy postponed the project.
Related is hunkering down on the office market elsewhere: the firm is pushing ahead with a 600,000-square-foot office plan just off South Congress Avenue, tripling the original size of that proposal.
— Judah Duke
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