East Austin Developers to Provide Updates in January

For those of you interested in some hot redevelopments in Austin...

I attended the Women and Minority Owned Business (WBE/MBE) Advisory Council meeting last Tuesday. This board is comprised of citizens that are appointed by Austin City Council. Their meeting is open to the public and is held the first Tuesday of each month at City Hall (off 2nd Street).

Some of the agenda items discussed the two of the hottest redevelopment projects in Austin. One is the Seaholm Powerplant Redevelopment, located in East Austin overlooking Town Lake. The other is the Robert Mueller Airport Redevelopment. Both master planners will be providing in-depth reports for their projects in the next advisory council meeting.

HOT NEWS: We learned that the Seaholm project planners have already chosen a developer and are finalizing negotiations by January. The advisory board's concerns with both master planners are that they are not living up to their promises of providing women and minority-owned companies ample opportunities at the communities. They are also concerned that small businesses will not be able to afford the retail and office lease rates.

Catellus, the master developer for the Robert Mueller Airport Redevelopment, was supposed to provide a report to the board, but only submitted a few written pages of updates on their project. There were more questions than answers, so the board is having a formal presentation by Catellus at their next meeting on January 2nd.

It was nice having a chance to raise questions on the projects as a citizen, then have the board back us up by forcing the developers to give answers. Two questions that I asked:

1. Why are the retail and office space rates among the highest in the city when Catellus promised an affordable community? The numbers on their brochure was $30-34 per sqft from what I remember.
   
2. What is the communication process from these developers to companies that placed bids on the projects and have not heard back? Catellus, for instance, had a bid deadline of September and still have not made announcements. Have they chosen a builder? When are the first residences going to be finished?

I'll attend the meeting, so expect a detailed summary in January.