URBAN LIVING
“Vertical Mixed-Use” proponents offer
residents a denser city

Cypress Real Estate looks to buy tract
on South First to continue Austin’s VMU experiment.

By Thom White

AUSTIN February 22, 2008 -- “Vertical Mixed-Use” development is sweeping the city, an innovation in urban planning which aims to make the state’s capital taller, denser, and more crowded.

In South Austin, one target for vertical mixed-use conversion is a 6.6 acre tract of undeveloped oak groves on South First Street, now owned by the Oak Meadow Baptist Church. At this time, because the property is in the middle of a residential neighborhood, it is illegal for potential land developers, Cypress Real Estate Advisors, to build the apartment complex and shopping center that they envision. But Cypress is now working with city officials to change the zoning for this large swath of land before they pay up for the prime real estate.

Steve Metcalfe of the law firm Drenner & Golden Stuart Wolff, gave a presentation to the Dawson Neighborhood Planning Team (DNPT) on the proposed “Oak Meadows Project,” and Adam M. Gates, Vice President of acquisitions for Cypress Real Estate Advisors, chimed in on occasion as well. The DNPT presides over a strip of land bordered by Oltorf and Ben White on the north and south, and South Congress and South First on the east and west, and the group must give approval for any zoning change in that area.

According to Mr. Gates, one goal of the presentation to neighbors was to “diffuse any anxiety.” Cypress Real Estate is urging neighbors and the City Council to approve a zoning change from “SF-3” (which allows for only single-family houses and duplexes) to “GO-V” (General Office / Vertical Mixed Use), a zoning change that will allow for ground level retail establishments that are necessary to their plan.

Assuming they can push through amenable zoning changes, Cypress Real Estate plans to buy the property, demolish the Baptist church, and put a shopping center in its place on the corner of Post Road and South 1st Street. Current plans call for about 300 apartments in 3- to 4-story buildings along with a gigantic parking structure. Architects plan to surround the garage with the apartment buildings to prevent it from being too much of an eyesore.

This property is high-elevation for its area, and so promises outstanding views of the Austin skyline for those that can afford to live there. Cypress Real Estate plans to chop down about four large oak trees to build the new parking garage and apartment buildings. In the northwest corner of the tract, they plan a “pocket park” by an oak grove, a set-aside “green space” required by vertical mixed-use regulations.

Several neighbors commented that traffic on South First is already backed up for block after block during the afternoon rush hour, and wondered whether the development would only worsen the problem. Another guy whose house is on Post Road had concerns about having more problem traffic on his little street.

Cypress Real Estate Advisors has already bought up 12.5 acres at the intersection of South Lamar and Manchaca to experiment with their grand vertical-mixed use designs. Over an 18-month period, the company acquired six adjacent tracts of land there (including auto body shops and another church) where they plan to build 400 apartments along the street, and another 42 town homes on the back side of the lot. Cypress Real Estate also owns 50 acres of apartments and other properties off East Riverside near Town Lake that they plan to demolish and redevelop in due time.

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