Amid challenging conditions in the real estate and lending markets, a proposed 80-story residential tower that had been planned to be the tallest high-rise in Texas has now been scaled back to 45 stories. [...]
Taylor Wilson, president of Wilson Capital, said the revised design comes in response both to feedback from Austin's Design Commission and to significant changes in the real estate and financial markets, which are grappling with rising interest rates and tightened lending standards.
— The Austin American-Statesman
The revised Wilson Tower proposal would have surpassed I.M. Pei’s JPMorgan Chase Tower in Houston as the state’s record-holder. KPF’s Waterline development is still on track to break it by 20 feet. The episode highlights the economic stasis affecting developers in the city’s insanely high-stakes CRE market as the impacts of the tech recession compound.
"We are making some changes to the ground floor in response to both the Design Commission’s feedback and changes to the vertical nature of the building in response to current market conditions," Wilson said via email to the Austin American-Statesman. "Construction costs and interest rates are both higher now than they were when we originally designed the project. We believe this new design is more appropriate to provide an activated ground floor while remaining feasible in today’s environment."
2 Comments
Good.
Even by abysmal high-rise design standards of Austin, the 80 story version of this tower was ill-proportioned and unattractive.
Great work!
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