Graham Development’s high-profile plan to remake a stretch of South Congress Avenue may hinge on an old East Austin landfill that Travis County is aiming to seize.
County commissioners voted this week to use eminent domain to acquire the 150-acre site at 9500 East Highway 290, a move that could derail Graham’s mixed-use project nearly 15 miles away, the Austin Business Journal reported.
The landfill is the lynchpin because Graham needs it to house a scrapyard — LKQ Auto Salvage — that sits on its development site, at 7900 South Congress.
The scrapyard holds a lease through 2036, making redevelopment impossible unless it moves. Graham Development and the landowner, Moo Moo Meadows, sued Travis County in July, alleging the county illegally blocked the scrapyard’s relocation while failing to address long-standing contamination at the landfill.
County officials say the East Austin tract is needed for landfill maintenance, repair and potential parkland, though no cost estimate was disclosed. A spokesperson declined to elaborate on why the acquisition is necessary. An unsigned resolution in the meeting packet shows the parties failed to agree on voluntary acquisition terms.
If the county takes the site, Graham Development partner Corbin Graham said he will lose his only viable landing spot for LKQ. He told the outlet that scrapyards require ultra-low-cost land — under $4 per square foot — which simply doesn’t exist along South Congress or Highway 290.
A closed landfill fits the bill, in his view, because the use relies mostly on storing cars on compacted gravel rather than building structures that would demand costly engineering on unstable ground.
Environmental issues at the landfill are well documented.
The site stopped accepting waste in 1982, and tests earlier this year found unsafe levels of arsenic, barium and lead in leachate and groundwater, according to the lawsuit. Graham and Moo Moo Meadows argue the county ignored years of directives from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to close and remediate the site and overstepped its authority in blocking the scrapyard move.
Graham’s proposed South Congress development is substantial: 1,218 apartments, 210,000 square feet of office space, 136,000 square feet of retail and an affordable housing component.
To salvage it, he’s pitching a tax increment reinvestment zone that could generate roughly $20 million toward cleanup, alongside $10 million the county has budgeted. But until the eminent-domain fight is resolved, the future of one of South Austin’s biggest potential redevelopments remains stuck behind a scrapyard.
— Eric Weilbacher
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