Tagged: Development

Arsenic, lead and the byproducts of burned oil were some of the contaminants found underneath an electrical substation at the Seaholm power plant downtown.

The land will eventually be home to Austin’s new central library. Those contaminants have now been removed and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has issued its seal of approval.

There’s no City Council meeting this week: Instead, City Hall watchers’ eyes were on Mayor Lee Leffingwell’s 2013 State of the City address, delivered at a Real Estate Council of Austin luncheon on Tuesday.

Owing in part to Austin’s good fortunes, the mayor’s speech is traditionally a rosy affair, full of economic achievements. And that was the case this time:  “Austin, Texas is today, I think without question, one of the most widely admired and most emulated cities in America,” said Leffingwell in one of the speech’s many paeans to the city.

In the past few years, once quaint and quiet Rainey Street has become a haven for the hip, with businesses ubiquitously flipping the neighborhood's historic bungalows into bars.

Tonight, the City of Austin Planning Commission will discuss two possible changes along Rainey Street: one that would encourage the relocation of historic homes, and another measure that would require new bars to seek permits, including public hearings.

Austin usually ranks against cosmopolitan destinations in the numerous lists it’s named in. But try this one on for size: Provo, Utah.

The metro areas of Austin and Provo lead the nation in expected household growth, according to a new study based on U.S. Census data. The projection is for Austin to grow by 7.4 percent, adding 50,000 households over the next five years.

In May, the City of Austin invited members of the news media into the Waller Creek tunnel.

Meeting at the construction site at Fourth Street and I-35, reporters traveled down a 26-foot wide shaft, in a metal box lowered by a construction crane. At the time, some 1,300 feet had been excavated. When we checked back in in September, over 3,200 square feet had been excavated.

Above ground, the tunnel is designed to keep flood-prone Waller Creek in its banks. And just what to do with the acres of land pulled out of the flood plain is a hot topic: in October, a design team was named to plot the transformation of the Waller Creek area.