Austin leaders want to give one of the city’s underperforming assets – Waller Creek – an extreme makeover. But it’s going to take cooperation from private landowners, and maybe some action from our men and women in blue, to make…

Although the City of Austin requires lobbyists to register and pay a $300 fee once a year, the city does not notify registered lobbyists when their registration has expired. That means a number of local lobbyists were surprised to learn…

Proceeds from the proposed sale of the former Green Water Treatment Plant grounds to a development group that includes national firm Trammell Crow, locals Perry Lorenz and  Constructive Ventures would net the City of Austin $42.4 million. However, that amount…

The Planning Commission had its chance to host the ongoing fight over the removal of a downtown Heritage Tree, and after hours of discussion and testimony, opted to delay a final decision until their next meeting.   A request for…

The city got its first look at another proposed convention center hotel at last night’s meeting of the Downtown Commission. The 1,100-room hotel from the San-Diego based Manchester Texas Financial Group would be the second large hotel going up over…

Austin will submit its much anticipated, and somewhat delayed, application for federal revitalization funds today, a grant intended to boost business expansion along an industrial corridor on Austin’s near East Side.   The Community Development Commission, which heard an update…

Council approved waiving $3.8 million in development fees Wednesday for a 1,000-room hotel on Congress Avenue between Second and Third streets, a hotel many say is badly needed in order to increase city tourism. In return for those waivers, White…

Council approved one more high-density downtown tower last week that used a “CURE” overlay and bypassed interim downtown density bonuses. Four years after the interim downtown density bonus program was proposed, not a single project has used it to gain…

The Council delayed action on an economic development agreement with White Lodging on Thursday. The deal, which would support the construction of a Marriott convention center hotel on Congress Avenue, will instead be vetted next Wednesday during a special called…

Let the digging begin. Council members approved a series of contract authorizations, ordinances, and amendments to prior agreements on Thursday that will at long last enable work to begin on the Waller Creek Tunnel Project.   According to city documents,…

(Editor’s Note: This report was changed to include information from a second finance report filed by the Get Austin Moving PAC on Oct. 25, which was inadvertently left out of the earlier version of the story.)   Proponents of the…

Seems like everyone gripes about the transportations problems in Austin, but now some familiar names are lining up to try and do something about it.   The Get Austin Moving political action committee opened its campaign Monday to help pass…

The West End Austin Alliance, like the Texas Department of Transportation, is grappling with how to get traffic into and out of downtown more efficiently.   Last night, TxDOT began lane reconfigurations to add more capacity to the traffic bottleneck…

The implications of the proposed Castle Hill Historic District on its commercial neighbors, developer Perry Lorenz joked yesterday, were “clear as mud,” although city staff did attempt to ease the apprehension among property owners and developers at the West End…

The citizen’s task force charged with vetting a potential $90 million transportation bond package has given its formal approval to the measure. The vote, however, came with two abstentions, a host of additional recommendations and some frustration from Task Force…

City staff will be providing members of the 2010 Transportation Bond Citizen Task Force the final draft of the preliminary transportation bond package today. That package will be for task force members’ to consider over the weekend before voting on…

With nearly $100 million in transportation projects under consideration in a potential bond election this November, the members of the 2010 Transportation Bond Citizen Task Force spent time Thursday questioning Transportation Director Rob Spillar on the specifics of his department’s…

A Council subcommittee composed of Mayor Lee Leffingwell and Council Members Randi Shade and Chris Riley approved nine names on Wednesday as their nominees to the 2010 Transportation Bond Citizen Task Force. If approved by the full Council today, the…

Though there is still no official start date for new construction at the Green Water Treatment Plant redevelopment site, developer Perry Lorenz says that the group of investors behind the reworking of the facility is “very close to wrapping up…

Despite reports to the contrary, the 21c Museum Hotel does expect to break ground in the immediate future, landowner Perry Lorenz assured the Waller Creek Citizen Advisory Committee, promising a question-and-answer session at next month’s meeting.   Originally slated to…