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Austin got a peek at two major downtown towers in the works last week, despite the fact that a city meeting to discuss them was canceled at the last minute. One of them, 6th + Guadalupe, would the city’s tallest if built as proposed. The other, The Republic, would be one of the city’s more architecturally interesting towers to join the skyline—admittedly not a high bar, so to speak.
As described and rendered in its application and supporting materials submitted to the Austin Design Commission, which canceled its scheduled June 23 meeting due to lack of quorum, The Republic would be a 37-story tower located at 401 West Fourth Street, currently a surface-parking lot across from Republic Square. Travis County purchased the lot to be the site of a new courthouse, which fell through after a 2015 bond vote to secure its funding failed. The developer has a 99-year, $430 million lease on the property.
The Republic would contain 711,401 square feet of office space and 21,463 square feet of retail, according to a recent Austin Business Journal article, which also noted that developers Lincoln Property and Phoenix Propertyare not expecting site plan approval until May.
The architects designing the The Republic are North Carolina-based Duda Paine and HKS (designer of “Jerryworld,” the Dallas Cowboys’s AT&T Stadium in Irving, Texas). The landscape architect is TBG Partners.
• New renderings out of 37-story tower; vote on 66-story skyscraper expected soon [ABJ]