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(Kevin Ludlow)
Resident Kevin Ludlow collected video footage of a homeless encampment in the Windsor Park neighborhood over many months before compiling and posting it to YouTube and Facebook.
Nearly 28,000 people have viewed a four-minute YouTube video about "massive problems"—including trash, drug use, fires and human waste behind backyard fences—caused by a homeless encampment in Austin's Windsor Park neighborhood.
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9d68420c0627bfee04e7972d1e4affd4" style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" type="lazy-iframe" scrolling="no" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xbsXgU6PO6U?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Massive problems in the Windsor Park creek</small>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbsXgU6PO6U&app=desktop" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
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</p><p><br/></p><p>Kevin Ludlow, a Windsor Park resident and former Libertarian candidate for the Texas House, filmed the growing encampment over several months. He compiled the video, titled "Massive problems in the Windsor Park creek," to share on a private neighborhood Facebook group.<br/></p><p>Shortly after it was posted on Sunday, someone <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/i2wnyw/video_showing_the_progression_of_a_homeless_camp/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x" target="_blank">shared it on Reddit</a>, where it has garnered more than 1,400 comments.</p><p>Ludlow said he posted the video after spending months speaking with people who live in the encampment and filming its expansion. </p><p><br/></p><div class="rm-embed embed-media"><blockquote class="reddit-card" data-card-created="1596637351"><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/i43lhr/i_created_that_video_of_the_homeless_camp_you_may/">I created that video of the homeless camp you may have watched yesterday. Here is an interview with one of the women who lives in the camp so you can really get a feel for what it's like back there.</a> from <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Austin">r/Austin</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="UTF-8" src="//embed.redditmedia.com/widgets/platform.js"></script></div><p><br/></p><p>Although he sympathizes with their plight, Ludlow said, he also worries about violence and other risky behaviors. </p><p>A fire in the encampment on June 21 that could have damaged the neighboring homes had it been allowed to spread, he said, and the recent killing of a 58-year-old woman on nearby East 51st Street <a href="https://www.austintexas.gov/news/homicide-27-update" target="_blank">on July 20</a> also concerns him. Austin police arrested a 23-year-old man in connection with the killing, which happened at night outside her apartment, but did not describe a motive. </p><p>The video also shows a growing collection of trash, syringes and feces, which Ludlow said runs into the backyards of the mid-Austin neighborhood east of I-35. </p><p>"For as much sympathy as I have for the people who are out there, surely we shouldn't be subjected to having thousands of pounds of human excrement dumped on our property," he said.</p><p>Ludlow said more should be done to address the issue, though he recognizes the city faces challenges.</p><p>"I think they want to do something," he said. "I just don't think they have a tenable solution that's available to them."</p><p><br/></p><div class="rm-embed embed-media"><blockquote class="reddit-card" data-card-created="1596567982"><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/i2wnyw/video_showing_the_progression_of_a_homeless_camp/">Video showing the progression of a homeless camp in Windsor park.</a> from <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Austin">r/Austin</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="UTF-8" src="//embed.redditmedia.com/widgets/platform.js"></script></div><p><br/></p><p><strong>In search of a solution</strong></p><p>Austin residents facing issues related to encampments are encouraged to call the nonemergency 311 line. Due to the pandemic, however, the city has implemented a moratorium on clean-up efforts.<br/></p><p>The city's watershed protection department, which last cleaned the encampment in Windsor Park in early March, plans to go to the council next month to secure funding for an emergency contract, which would allow its staff to resume cleanups with new COVID protocols, a spokesperson wrote in an email to Austonia.</p><p>The <a href="http://www.windsorpark.info/" target="_blank">Windsor Park Neighborhood Association</a> plans to discuss solutions at a meeting this Saturday, which was planned before Ludlow's video was shared.</p><p>"I've been here for 18 years," the group's president, Dan Strub, told Austonia. "[The encampment] goes back as far as I can remember." </p><p>While the encampment has grown in the last year or two, Strub said, residents are reluctant to call the police "about much of anything that isn't directly crime-related these days."</p><p>The Windsor Park encampment sits on public property - along Little Tannehill Branch Creek, between Broadmoor Drive and 52nd Street, Strub said. </p><p>There is<a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2019/11/04/gov-greg-abbots-cleaning-homeless-camps-sets-back-some-austinites/" target="_blank"> little that city officials or police can do</a> to force campers elsewhere for now. Last year, the Austin City Council abolished the city's ban on public camping, but a petition aimed at reinstating the ban <a href="https://austonia.com/austin-homeless-camps" target="_self">received 24,000 signatures</a> and may lead to a referendum in November.</p><p>On Tuesday, a consultant <a href="https://austonia.com/new-report-urges-more-humane-approaches-to-austin-homeless-struggles" target="_self">hired to study the city's homeless problem</a> told the Austin City Council that punitive measures like encampment sweeps are ineffective and should be replaced with more trash pick-ups and on-site safe-needle exchanges.</p><p>While not everyone agrees on allowing public camping, Strub said, he believes the neighbors are interested in helping the homeless community rather than penalizing it.</p><p>"I think there are a lot of folks in this neighborhood who are very sympathetic to that view," Strub said.</p>
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New Tesla Gigafactory site in Austin, Texas
Developer Doug Launius said he knew 10 years ago that Southeast Austin was a place to invest: it's close to downtown and the airport; the land is relatively affordable; it is served by three major roadways—SH 71, SH 130 and FM 973; and the rolling hills are beautiful.
<p>
"It really is much closer [to Central Austin] than most people think," said Launius, principal of the Southeast Austin-focused development firm Marketplace Real Estate.
</p><p>
Marketplace owns some 900 acres in the area, including the site of a forthcoming 7-million-square-foot mixed-use development called Velocity, which is about a mile away from the site of Tesla's recently announced $1.1 billion Gigafactory.
</p><p>Launius welcomes its arrival, which a local industry expert said will speed development—and the growth of property value—in the area. </p><p>"Tesla opening their factory … is going to accelerate the growth in the area and help us bring the services, the grocery stores, and all the things that we want to do to the area more quickly," he said.<br/></p><p>
<strong>Upcoming development</strong></p><div class="rm-embed embed-media"><iframe height="480" src="https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=1PISeNJuHfzov-ZH8hlGmA8Ws-AJdsUZM" width="640"></iframe></div><p><em>(The above map shows the approximate sites of the Austin Green (north) and Velocity (south) developments. The blue marker is near the entrance to the Tesla site.)</em><br/></p><p>
The area southeast of Austin began developing over the last five to seven years for a number of reasons, including rising property costs within the city limits and the construction of SH 130, which improved mobility in the area, said Eldon Rude, principal of the local consulting firm 360 Real Estate Analytics.</p><p>"A lot of it has to do with its proximity to Austin, relative to some other suburban areas, and the ability to buy land, develop and build homes that are affordable, if you will, for first-time and first move-up homebuyers," he said.</p><p>This growth includes Velocity, which plans to build 2,683 units of multifamily housing, 2.9 million square feet of office space and 42 acres of parks; H-E-B, which bought 16 acres in the development <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2019/11/14/huge-changes-on-east-austins-horizon.html" target="_blank"><u>in 2016</u></a>; and Austin Community College, which owns 124 acres adjacent to the development and plans to build <a href="https://www.statesman.com/business/20200615/developers-expanding-plan-for-southeast-austin-project" target="_blank"><u>a regional workforce center.</u></a></p><p>
There is also the Austin Green development, from the local development firm GroundWork, which began the process of securing City Council approval for the 2,100-acre project <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2020/01/24/austin-green-development-takes-first-step-forward.html" target="_blank">earlier this year</a>. As proposed, it would include 12,000 residential units as well as retail, office, industrial, medical and park space—and now, with Elon Musk's announcement last week, the Tesla factory.</p><p><strong><span></span>The Tesla effect</strong>
</p><p>
Rude expects the factory to further development in the area, as a new workforce—first the construction workers who build the factory and then the employees who work there—drives up demand for housing and other services. Tesla's suppliers may also move to the region, compounding the effect.
</p><p>
This will likely affect the area's affordability, Rude said, and prompt more investment, such as an expansion of DVISD and the arrival of big-box stores.
</p><p>
For Launius, Tesla's arrival is proof of the area's appeal. "We say it's like throwing gas on the fire. The fire was already burning out there pretty strong, and then Tesla comes [and] announces," he said. "I think it's only going to be beneficial for Southeast Austin and Del Valle."
</p>
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(Google Maps)
The Sherry Matthews Group, an ad agency, has decided to sell the 7,500-square-foot office building it has been in for 20 years.
<p>The agency said in an announcement that, as a result of lessons learned during the pandemic, employees would continue working from home while the company moves to a smaller space where groups of workers could gather at different times.</p><p>No price has been announced for the .6 -acre site at 200 S. Congress Ave., but it is valued at $3.78 million by the <a href="http://propaccess.traviscad.org/clientdb/Property.aspx" target="_blank">Travis County Central Appraisal District</a>.</p><p>As <a href="https://austonia.com/technology/google-austin-office" target="_blank">firms delay returning</a> to <a href="https://austonia.com/lifestyle/the-workplace-of-tomorrow-reopening-austin-offices-plan-for-one-way-foot-traffic-sanitizing-stations-distanced-desks" target="_blank">offices</a>, the impact on the downtown office real estate market has <a href="https://austonia.com/city/developers-look-beyond-pandemic-civil-unrest-and-see-a-bright-future-for-the-austin-office-market" target="_blank">yet to be seen</a>. </p><p>The nearby Austin American-Statesman property is slated for development into<a href="https://www.statesman.com/business/20200707/statesman-signs-lease-will-relocate-to-southeast-austin-site-next-year" target="_blank"> a massive mixed-use project</a>.</p><p>Agency owner Sherry Matthews made a statement in the announcement.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"We've had many team members who primarily worked from home for years ... But I had always thought that most of the Creative, Account Service, Media and other departments had to be in the office working together to provide stellar service to our clients. This pandemic has taught us just the opposite. The process has been seamless, and our staff is flourishing working remotely. They appreciate recovering additional personal time by not spending hours each day behind the wheel in traffic. They like the quiet time to reflect, write, and work without interruptions."</p>
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A view of what kind of view $13 million can buy on Lake Travis
Let's face it—we're all tired of staring at the same four walls during this pandemic. Here are a few homes that have hit Austin's booming luxury real estate market, because we're in the mood for a little escape.
Toreador
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ0MTM2OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyOTY0NjQ5M30.MzKJ3S4l1z7oaKgRRoOUFG18BfZdVF9KUN9XeVOrDyQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="c4a86" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="20768e7a26faddae6bfb970bd4d2936b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>This 7-bedroom home sits on 5 acres of land in Westlake and is listed for $10 million by Kumara Wilcoxon of <a href="http://www.kuperrealty.com" target="_blank">Kuper Sotheby's International Realty</a>. </p>Island Wood
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ0MTMxNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MTA3NDI2N30.RVLf3H2cwMQJArXFMW0akGrw7fK0TMJ4MXa8976iwKY/img.jpg?width=980" id="06c93" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="402f9c47142ab28798acfb6e7d0af899" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>This 7-bedroom Westlake home sits on 2 acres of land. It is listed for $10.95 million by Kathryn Scarborough of<a href="https://austin.evrealestate.com/" target="_blank"> Engel & Völkers.</a> </p>Wild Cat Hollow
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ0MTMxNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxOTkwMDcxNX0.Cr5Q03di0xZ-3SHLmAeN605i5IZesika5dgws0fWps8/img.jpg?width=980" id="ca51a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="412b7e62d905f7df1c5cb3606742956a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>This <a href="http://modernwestlake.com/" target="_blank">$10 million home </a>is privately listed by <a href="https://www.moreland.com/" target="_blank">Moreland Properties</a>. It has 4 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms and a 2-car garage. </p>The Nautilus
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ0MTM0NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNDc3NTk5Mn0.EtZLb19JX37zThAFNvSZOVCum-mHQ_86NzePOR7IbXM/img.jpg?width=980" id="3fa7f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6742d364a067f4a914f19f3735749220" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>This $12.5 million home sits on the banks of Lake Austin and is listed by Kumara Wilcoxon of <a href="http://www.kuperrealty.com" target="_blank">Kuper Sotheby's International Realty</a>.</p>Portofino Ridge
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ0MTM0OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NjM2NDg1N30.PldY4aIXz7Muotu4Nrs7M7fYYWT4tR1RZDIiS8foDQ0/img.jpg?width=980" id="1f93f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8cb430f934a1d6e39026bf000a8a918b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>This 4-acre property is listed for $12.9 million by Gary and Michelle Dolch of <a href="https://austinluxurygroup.com/" target="_blank">Austin Luxury Group</a>. </p>Comanche Trail
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ0MTM1NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMjYyOTQ1OH0.BqWZFHxCHw-3SUFgwX0Q0pJ7Mb1si2BHOHsykeWAQRM/img.jpg?width=980" id="ae5e8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e11090b39d3e8b236476917c0808802d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>This 13-acre estate sits on Lake Travis and is listed for $12,999,000 by Gary and Michelle Dolch of <a href="https://austinluxurygroup.com/" target="_blank">Austin Luxury Group</a>. </p><h5></h5><h5>Want to read more stories like this one? Start every day with a quick look at what's happening in Austin. Sign up for Austonia.com's free daily morning email.</h5>
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(Moreland Properties)
This 4-bedroom, $10 million Westlake home is privately listed by Moreland Properties. ModernWestlake.com
Welcome to austonia.com, a new local news site for Austin. We're an authentically local company—Austin stories, Austin people, Austin advertisers. News, trends, media, topics, people. No paywalls. We cover the changes that are reshaping our city. To get connected, sign up for our free daily AM newsletter update.
When businesses closed their doors in March, Austin realtor Cord Shiflet did not think he would sell another house this year.
To his surprise, this has been the busiest month he has ever seen for well-funded buyers moving to Austin.
"In my 23 years of doing this, the last month has been the craziest, most active market I've ever seen, with big buyers moving into Austin," said Shiflet, who works for Moreland Properties. "COVID has set our market on fire."
Austin realtors say business is booming in luxury real estate, which is a pleasant surprise after expecting sales to plummet due to coronavirus.
The majority of his big buyers have usually come from California, Shiflet said, but now he is seeing a drastic increase in New York executives and business owners who want to move to Austin.
After months of stay-home orders and working remotely, people from both coasts seem to be reevaluating where they live.
"We've just been seeing New Yorkers coming out here in droves," Shiflet said. "They can work from really anywhere in the world, and these people don't want to live in the tight spaces that they're currently in."
Texas has long appealed to people living in more regulated states due to a business-friendly climate and lack of state income tax. Shiflet said realtors are struggling to keep up with the increased demand from new buyers, many of whom are shocked to see how much further their money can go in Texas.
"We're going through our Rolodexes and knocking on doors, trying to find the quality product that these people want," Shiflet said. "They have a hard time believing they can have so much house and so much space and land around them as opposed to the apartments they're coming out of in New York."
Michelle Dolch, a realtor from Austin Luxury Group, said she has experienced the same thing—she even has a few buyers who are looking in the range of $20 million and above.
"We don't really have a lot of real estate in that market," Dolch said. "Our inventory is really stressed."
In addition to those from California and New York, Dolch has seen an increase in buyers coming from Seattle and Chicago, citing complaints about coronavirus and taxes.
"It just seems that a lot of people that have been considering moving here over the years are now coming here all at once," Dolch said. "A lot of people have always considered Austin as a place they'd like to live in. They're not considering it anymore—they're moving forward with it."
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(SeanPavonePhoto/Adobe)
In 2010, shortly after the Great Recession ended, entrepreneur Paul O'Brien and his family—wife and three kids—packed up their home in the Silicon Valley town of Los Gatos and headed to the Silicon Hills hub of Austin. The O'Briens were eager for a better quality of life.
<p>The mortgage crisis and other issues "made us realize we were not where we wanted to be," said O'Brien, founder and CEO of Austin-based MediaTech Ventures.</p><p>Ten years after arriving here, O'Brien believes many current residents of the San Francisco Bay Area—encompassing the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas—will pull up stakes and settle in Austin (and other cities in Texas) to flee sky-high housing prices and other quality-of-life drawbacks. Why now? The coronavirus pandemic has propelled the remote-work movement, freeing up folks who've been tethered to offices to work from, and live, practically anywhere.</p><p>On Twitter, Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan wrote in May that the remote-work wave has erased some of the key reasons for staying in the Bay Area.</p><p>"The office isn't used, the industry is going remote," <a href="https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1260276923743129600" target="_blank">he tweeted</a>. "So SF is just pure repulsion. And people will fly away."</p><p>A <a href="https://www.redfin.com/blog/wfh-leaving-new-york-san-francisco/" target="_blank">May 3-5 survey by Redfin</a>, a residential real estate brokerage company, found that 51% of people living in San Francisco would "fly away" if current work-from-home policies became permanent. The No. 1 driver of this would-be exodus? The desire to live somewhere less expensive. The <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Bay-Area-migration-Coronavirus-prompts-residents-15225445.php" target="_blank">San Francisco Chronicle reported in April</a> that, based on anecdotal evidence, the coronavirus pandemic apparently "has prompted a minor but disorienting Bay Area exodus."</p><p>Before the pandemic, 35% of local residents indicated in a <a href="https://sfgov.org/citysurvey/likely-leave-san-francisco" target="_blank">2019 survey</a> by the San Francisco Controller's Office that they were likely to move away from San Francisco in the next three years.</p><p>Perhaps buoying the potential San Francisco-to-Austin shift is the fact that a number of Northern California-based employers maintain sizeable outposts in Central Texas. The list includes AMD, Apple, Applied Materials, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Oracle, PayPal and Visa.</p><p>Data suggests a pandemic-inspired migration from the Bay Area to Austin might already be underway.</p><p>Figures from Apartments.com show an upward trend in searches by people in San Francisco for places to live in Austin. The data covers the period from Feb. 1 to June 5.</p><p>Another apartment website, Zumper, has recorded a 29% spike in Austin searches by people located in the San Francisco Bay area. The site compared the two-month period of February and March to the two-month period of April and May. Zumper noted that May is the kickoff of the summer moving season, which might account for part of the 29% increase.</p><p>Of course, Austin has seen this scene play out for a while, with a steady stream of folks transplanting themselves from the Bay Area to Austin in the years since the Great Recession. One high-profile example: Silicon Valley entrepreneur, investor, author and podcaster Tim Ferriss relocated to Austin in 2017 to escape an environment that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-tim-ferriss-left-silicon-valley-for-austin-texas-2017-12" target="_blank">he branded as close-minded</a>.</p><p>"While many poke fun at all the immigrants to Austin, and even disdain all those Californians," O'Brien said, "the fact is that many left in 2009 and 2010 precisely to be Texan and not Californian. Austin, from that point forward, became a prototype—an MVP—of how cities throughout the world could also thrive through the internet and how we could all look to the internet in our traditional industries."</p>
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Developers look beyond pandemic, protests and see a bright future for the Austin office market
10 June
Two weeks ago, as Texas continued its pandemic reopening plan but before mass protests against police violence erupted in downtown Austin, a $275 million deal fell through.
<p>Ryman Hospitality Properties announced May 22 that it would not purchase Block 21, a mixed-use real estate development that includes ACL Live at the Moody Theater and the W Austin, from Stratus Properties, forfeiting a $15 million nonrefundable deposit.<br/></p><p>"In the current capital markets and economic environment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we have determined that it is not in the best interest of our shareholders to focus our resources and capital on this project at this time," Ryman CEO Colin Reed said in a press release.</p><p>In the wake of COVID's arrival in Austin—and after more than a decade of strong sustained growth—the local office real estate market contracted. But experts say that the city is poised to recover, even if office space <a href="https://austonia.com/lifestyle/the-workplace-of-tomorrow-reopening-austin-offices-plan-for-one-way-foot-traffic-sanitizing-stations-distanced-desks" target="_self">looks different</a> post-pandemic.</p><p>"I think what you'll see in Austin is short-term paralysis as a result of the freeze in the venture market," said Ryan Bohls, a director focused on office tenant representation for NAI Partners' Austin office. </p><p>But in the longer term, Bohls believe Austin's strong relationships with what he calls "the four horsemen"—Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google—will sustain the city's office market, especially as they and other tech companies seek to expand their reach into cities outside of the coastal areas hit harder by the pandemic.</p><p>The city's diverse economy—which includes big tech as well as the University of Texas at Austin, Ascension Seton and most recently the U.S. Army—is what helped it rebound after the 2008 recession.</p><p>Ben Tolson, a principal for Aquila Commercial, believes that diverse economy will carry the city through this crisis as well. "I just feel very, very positively about how our city's positioned relative, again, to much of the nation," he said. </p><p>While data is limited, initial reports indicate that market activity picked up toward the end of May. As more workers return to their offices, companies will likely reevaluate their needs.<br/></p><p>Richard Paddock, who oversees HPI's Austin office portfolio, said he is hearing from tenants and companies that most are incorporating a work-from-home strategy into their business plans. But this does not mean office space is obsolete.<br/></p><p>Paddock anticipates some companies will downsize, which may reduce the overall occupied square footage across Austin's office market. "But it still yields velocity," he said.<br/></p><p>Other companies may realize they want more space, either to accommodate social distancing or because of trends that predate the pandemic.<br/></p><p>Research <a href="https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-truth-about-open-offices" target="_blank">published in the Harvard Business Journal</a> found that denser offices resulted in less meaningful interaction among employees—and therefore less productive collaboration.<br/></p><p>Open-floor plans were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/health/coronavirus-office-makeover.html" target="_blank">on their way out</a> before COVID-19, Tolson said, as companies moved to "de-densify" their spaces and improve productivity. "That's going to be accelerated as a result of this," he said.<br/></p><p>There was also a trend in Austin toward neighborhoods such as East Austin, Mueller and Parmer Lane, where office space is cheaper, parking easier and commutes shorter. "Austin has a tremendous amount of really well positioned mid-rise [and] low-rise opportunities," Tolson said.<br/></p><p>While working from home may outlast the pandemic, Bohls said major employers will continue to use top-tier offices—with prime locations, walkable amenities and perks—as a recruiting tool, "especially for technology companies that use real estate to lure top talent."<br/></p><p>And what about the protests downtown?<br/></p><p>"The effects of the civic unrest are largely going to be confined to first-floor retail occupiers," Bohls said. <br/></p>
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(The Austin Bulldog)
The Travis Central Appraisal District (TCAD) provides administrative and budgetary support for the Travis Appraisal Review Board (ARB). The two separate entities are collaborating to plan how formal protest hearings may be conducted safely during a pandemic while still complying with state statutes.
<p>A total of 118,000 property owners (or their agents) filed protests of property values that TCAD assigned this year. That's more than 25,000 <em>fewer</em> protests that were filed in both 2018 and 2019. A key factor in reducing the number of protests this year is that TCAD did not reappraise residential properties in 2020.</p><p><a href="https://theaustinbulldog.org/covid-19-plans-for-appraisal-review-board-hearings/" target="_blank">Read the rest at The Austin Bulldog.</a></p>
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