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(Austonia staff)
Despite the pandemic, and uncertainty about the future of office work, new towers and other developments continue to spring up across Austin.
This year, some significant downtown projects, as well as major new projects from Tesla and Austin FC that are farther afield, will officially open. Here are eight to look out for:
1. Office tower at 300 Colorado St.
(Cousins Properties)
This 32-story office building at 300 Colorado St. is scheduled to be completed this quarter. Developed by Cousins Properties, the tower will be home to Austin-based oil and gas company Parsley Energy, which has leased all of its office space. It will also be home to retail tenant Del Frisco's Grille.
2. Office tower at 405 Colorado St.
(Brandywine Realty Trust)
This 25-story office building at 405 Colorado St. is also scheduled to be completed this quarter. Developed by Brandywine Realty Trust, its tenants will include the investment management and research firm AllianceBernstein. According to the developer's website, the tower boasts an above-market parking ratio, "making it one of the easiest places to park" downtown.
3. Hotel tower at 5th & Brazos
This 32-story mixed use tower at 501 Brazos St. will open this quarter. Developed by the Magellan Development Group, the building will include tenants Thompson Hotels, a luxury boutique hotel chain that is owned by Hyatt and has outposts in Nashville and Chicago, and tommie hotels, a micro-hotel company that caters to a younger market.
4. Indeed Tower on 6th Street
(Trammell Crow)
This 36-story office building at 200 W. Sixth St. will be completed this March, according to developer Trammell Crow. Tenants include the worldwide employment website Indeed, the Teacher Retirement System of Texas and the Austin-based title insurance company Heritage Title. The site of this forthcoming tower was formerly a post office built in 1914.
5. Austin FC Stadium at McKalla Place
(Laura Figi/Austonia)
The $260 million Austin FC stadium is scheduled to open at 10414 McKalla Place in North Austin this spring, ahead of the Major League Soccer club's inaugural season. It will hold 20,500 spectators and include a 400-person capacity beer hall and multi-level team store. Austin FC's parent company and ownership group, Two Oak Ventures, privately financed the stadium.
6. Waterloo Park in Central Austin
(Waterloo Greenway/Twitter)
Waterloo Greenway, an urban park system that runs 1.5 miles along Waller Creek from 15th Street to Lady Bird Lake, will soon debut its first phase project: Waterloo Park. The 11-acre park is bordered by East 15th, Red River, East 12th and Trinity streets and will open this spring.
7. Giga Texas in Southeast Travis County
🏗 Giga Texas https://t.co/0D6QV1Fcsa— Omead Afshar (@Omead Afshar)1608435261.0
The forthcoming Tesla Gigafactory in Southeast Travis County is expected to be up and running by the end of this year, with the first substantial completion, or construction milestone, scheduled for May, according to the Austin Chamber of Commerce. The $1.1 billion, 2,100-acre, 7.9-million-square-foot factory will provide at least 5,000 jobs, not including the thousands of construction workers who are currently building it. Omead Afshar, project director within Tesla's office of the CEO, tweeted a photo of the factory's progress on Dec. 19.
8. The Quincy in the Rainey Street District
(Endeavor Real Estate Group)
This 29-story office and multi-family tower at 93 Red River St. will be completed in the third quarter of this year, according to developer Endeavor Real Estate Group. It will join recent high-rise additions in the Rainey Street Historical District, including the residential towers 70 Rainey and 44 East as well as a 51-story mixed-use building planned for 90-92 Rainey St.
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Popular
From the California coast to Scandanavia, here's where each Austin FC player is from. (Claire Partain)
Austin FC's first signee, Rodney Redes, hails from Paraguay. So does the club's first Designated Player, Cecilio Dominguez. Five other players' hometowns are in South America, while five others are from Europe or Africa. While most on the roster signed to Austin FC from other MLS teams, Austin FC players have played as far north as Finland, as far east as Israel and as far south as Argentina.
English and Spanish are the most spoken languages on the team, although Zan Kolmanic speaks Slovenian and the club is well-traveled, too: Jon Gallagher has lived in six countries, while Kekuta Manneh, the club's only true Austinite, left behind all he knew in Gambia to move to the city in high school.
The multiculturalism on the pitch goes hand-in-hand with the city of Austin itself. Over 30% of the city's population is of Hispanic or Latino descent, and Austin is a majority-minority city (meaning non-Hispanic Whites make up less than 50% of the population).
It's brought even the most unlikely groups together; while supporters of Liga MX and the English Premier League used to be on opposite sides of the bar, now they come together in green.
Jorge Chavez, a member of Austin FC fan club Austin Anthem, said that Austin FC helps unite a city full of travelers and move-ins.
"A lot people here are from all these different places, and they might not have that much in common with each other, but now they do," Chavez said.
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Austin's tech industry is hardly insulated from the post-pandemic labor shortage. Its workers stand to benefit as a result. (Joe Jungmann/CC)
"We are living in times when the employees are the king or the queen," said Angelos Angelou, founder and CEO of local consulting firm AngelouEconomics.
A talent center
Lured by the state's business-friendly climate and Austin's growing tech scene, California-based companies such as Tesla, Oracle and TikTok built factories, relocated headquarters and opened offices. Austin posted the highest tech migration rate of any city in the country between May 2020 and April 2021, according to a recent LinkedIn analysis.
With so many new resident businesses, job growth kept pace. The Austin metro ranked fourth nationally for tech job postings growth in March, according to Silicon Valley Bank's latest State of the Markets report.
Oracle relocated its headquarters to the Riverside location in Austin. (Shutterstock)
To fill these roles, local tech companies have to look beyond the city limits. Employers poach from their competitors, recruit recent graduates from area colleges and universities or look to the national labor market for talent, Angelou said.
Summer Salazar, director of employer engagement at the University of Texas at Austin, has seen a huge influx in tech sector job postings on the university's job board in recent months. "We feel that demand," she said.
An employee's market
Jaime Cabrera, 28, recently graduated from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and is looking for a policy job at a social media company. He didn't go into his job search with plans to stay in Austin but has seen various intriguing openings, citing Bumble, Lyft and TikTok. "I didn't realize how many companies are here," he said.
The tech labor market also affects employees who are not looking for a new job but instead seeking better benefits or internal policy changes from their current employer.
Lawrence Humphrey, 27, lives in North Austin and works for IBM. Shortly after the murder of George Floyd, he co-founded Tech Can Do Better, which advocates for a more equitable industry. Since then, there has been little quantitative progress in terms of more diverse hiring and other metrics. But there has been a qualitative shift. "Issues around racial equity are just far more of a priority from the perspective of the employees, so therefore it's far more of a priority for the employers," he said.
OG vs. newcomers
Although the pandemic has accelerated the growth of Austin's tech industry, the industry was already established. In the latter half of the 20th century, the city attracted big tech originators like IBM because of its enticingly low labor cost and spawned homegrown giants like Dell—trends that continue today.
The arrival of Silicon Valley tech transplants in other growing tech cities, such as Miami, has led to tension with the so-called old guard. In Austin, such competition has forced companies to compete for workers, leading to more mobility.
"When I was in the job market, my god if you changed jobs often—and often meant once every three years—you were considered a traitor," said Angelou, who headed the Austin Chamber's economic development department from 1984 through 1995, helping to recruit companies such as IBM, Apple and Samsung to town. "Now people change jobs every nine months, it appears, and that is considered a plus."
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