Austin Triangle

Mixed-Use Development Brings New Shape to Neighborhood

by Rob Patterson

Residential and retail come together in harmony on a state-owned site in Austin after years of neighborhood resistance.

Yes, the mixed-use development in Austin known as the Triangle is a straightforward construction project, but the process of bringing it online has been anything but.

"There were a lot of stakeholders involved - the city, state, developer and neighborhood groups - and it took six or seven years to get everybody happy," said Gary Mefford, project manager for the developer, Simmons Vedder & Co. of Austin.

The developer came aboard on the 22-acre project north of the University of Texas in 2002 after Post Properties of Austin bowed out. Simmons Vedder put together a design for residential and retail space on the state-owned site that fits with the city's "Smart Growth" urban infill initiative and overcame the opposition of adjacent neighborhoods to higher-density proposals for the large, undeveloped tract.

Phase one of the $75 million apartment development with retail and restaurant space broke ground in November 2003 and will finish in August.

The first $30 million phase is two four-story buildings with 343,375 sq. ft. containing 335 apartments and 26,500 sq. ft. of retail and restaurant space on the ground floor of one of the buildings. A second phase adding another 113,000 sq. ft. of apartments is expected to break ground by December. A third section of the residential development, with additional four-story apartments and a 10-floor tower, is in the planning stage.

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The two apartment buildings under way are primarily "stick and brick" structures with wood frame faced with brick along with cast stone and planking. The ground-floor retail section of the triangular-shaped A building at the 45-degree angle intersection of Guadalupe Street and Lamar Boulevard is poured-in-place concrete topped by a 10-in.-thick post-tension cable fire-separation deck with three floors of wood-frame apartments above.

Simmons Vedder and Alliance Residential are building the apartments through a joint venture, SV Alliance Tricor, formed for the project.

Cencor Realty of Austin, which originated development on the site, will oversee the retail section of the project. The company will also construct 95,000 sq. ft. of office and retail space and 88,000 sq. ft. of apartments on 7.5 acres of the site at a cost of approximately $30 million. Construction is expected to be under way by July.

The Steinberg Collaborative of Houston, which designed the structures, chose to build in wood frame with brick veneer because "we could get the high density with stick yet still get the look we wanted and keep the costs down," said Michael Dickey, the firm's manager of production.

The outer exteriors are primarily faced with three varieties of brick as well as another color accent brick. On the inner courtyards, the veneer is cement-hardy planks.

The "new urbanism" design breaks up the structures to give them a less imposing look. "The three main building styles make it look like different building as it goes along with multiple elevations and different colors and window styles," Dickey said.

The precast cement parking garages in the interior of the apartment buildings were constructed before the wood-frame buildings around them. "Using precast was a lot faster and a lot cheaper," Mefford said. The garage exteriors will be faced with brick to help blend them with the buildings.

Extensive infrastructure work by RGM Constructors LP of Pfluggerville valued at $10 million (of which Cencor pays a prorated share) was required for the unimproved site. It includes utilities, three new streets, a 3-acre retention pond, 1.8 acres of parkland, a storm drain running underneath the site and an offsite wastewater tunnel running through the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, located just south of the development.

Since much of the site was lower than the grade of the surrounding streets, fill was required.

"When we dug the lake to handle our own drainage as well as from off the site, we used the fill material off of that to adjust our grades internally, which was a big benefit rather than bringing it in from offsite," said Ashley Haines, vice president of construction for Simmons Vedder.

One challenge to the project came as the city of Austin shifted its building codes from the Universal Building Code to the International Building Code.

"We had some staging area but we needed every bit of it," Mefford said. "We also had two contractors working at one time because the infrastructure contractor was still well into his scope when we started the vertical construction."

The apartments will include amenities such as pools and a clubhouse. Brick pavers enhance the section of 47th Street between the first two buildings, and the site and surrounding parkland will undergo extensive landscaping featuring paved and lighted walkways.