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5th And Congress Tower


Dominax

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I'd be more optimistic about this project if it was posted somewhere other than Emporis. Most of their database is littered with unbuilt, unwanted, never-built or otherwise non-existant buildings.

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  • 9 months later...

Yes all of the current proposals are residential towers. Update on this tower, Tom Stacy recently hired a Cesar Pelli Firm to design the building wich could mean a very impressive signature tower. This tower is now proposed as 47 stories and between 680 and 700 feet tall. Though I wouldn't be suprised if it got even taller when all is said and done... The garage building should get started on as soon as June or July.

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How is Austin getting the wherewithal to keep building these 40 story towers? With oil prices above $60, shouldn't we be building the skyscrapers?

Austin is able to build because most of its wealth does not depend on petroleum, but rather the technology industry. Yes, Houston is built on OIL, but keep in mind.......... it is now not US oil (specifically TX) that we are consuming. Check out areas like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (just for starters). They are experiencing growth like Houston's late 70's early 80's boom. THAT is where all of our OIL $$$ is going unfortunately.

I hope Houston diversifies even more than it did in the late 80's. Otherwise, i am afraid Houston may fall into a Detroit-like state of stagnation. On the other hand, i read the other day, that Houston has been continually growing as a city in people and economics at a steady rate for the last 50 years! So, who knows what our future holds.

m.

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Austin is able to build because most of its wealth does not depend on petroleum, but rather the technology industry. Yes, Houston is built on OIL, but keep in mind.......... it is now not US oil (specifically TX) that we are consuming. Check out areas like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (just for starters). They are experiencing growth like Houston's late 70's early 80's boom. THAT is where all of our OIL $$$ is going unfortunately.

I hope Houston diversifies even more than it did in the late 80's. Otherwise, i am afraid Houston may fall into a Detroit-like state of stagnation. On the other hand, i read the other day, that Houston has been continually growing as a city in people and economics at a steady rate for the last 50 years! So, who knows what our future holds.

m.

Hold on now... Austin is not a big market - and it does not have an overly diversified economy either. Take a look at the period from year-end 2000 through year-end 2004 in Austin... an overdependence on the high-tech sector (and its subsequent implosion) and budgetary issues within the State government led to thousands of job losses, a drop in in-migration, and a crashing real estate market. All was not well in Dell-ville - because of the city's dependence on tech! Its only been recently that Austin has turned the corner and started seeing much healthier fundamentals... but, still, today apartment rents, office occupancies, and industrial fundamentals are still some distance from their peak in early 2000. The large residential towers that have been announced in downtown Austin are not a sure thing... and I am going to continue monitoring the market. The condo market is pretty thin in Austin, and with rising interest rates, could get stung fairly easily (witness what is happening in San Diego, Miami, etc... - on a much larger scale). If I were a lender there, I may be doing a little sweating...

Meanwhile, Houston has actually performed very well over the past 17 years... and has been a national leader in job growth over that period. The city has done really well over the past 5 years in particular in relation to the nation and most major metropolitan areas. AND, most of the job growth up until recently was NOT coming from the energy sector (consolidations in the industry saw to that). Health care, education, government, financial services, and construction helped keep Houston resilient. Energy is also expanding now, which is one of the primary reasons why the city is a national leader in employment growth.

Anyway, I am a big fan of Austin and it's residential construction boom is noteworthy. The city and strong developers are supporting the growth in units in the downtown core. I don't foresee a crash of any sort... but it will be much more competitive than we have seen recently. And, if you look at the numbers from the Texas Workforce Commission and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Austin - like all cities (Houston, too) - needs to continue nurturing and diversifying it's economic base.

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Austin is able to build because most of its wealth does not depend on petroleum, but rather the technology industry. Yes, Houston is built on OIL, but keep in mind.......... it is now not US oil (specifically TX) that we are consuming. Check out areas like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (just for starters). They are experiencing growth like Houston's late 70's early 80's boom. THAT is where all of our OIL $$$ is going unfortunately.

I hope Houston diversifies even more than it did in the late 80's. Otherwise, i am afraid Houston may fall into a Detroit-like state of stagnation. On the other hand, i read the other day, that Houston has been continually growing as a city in people and economics at a steady rate for the last 50 years! So, who knows what our future holds.

m.

Boy, I've heard some winners in my day, but this one takes the cake. Do you not even read headlines? If you add up every Austin company in the Fortune 1000, they don't even add up to HALF of Chevron's revenue! Notice, I didn't even mention Exxon, which is technically headquartered in Irving, but only has a few hundred employees there...all the rest are in Houston. There are 23 Fortune 500 companies HQ'd in Houston, 2 more in the suburbs, plus previously mentioned Exxon. Austin has Dell, and.....oh yeah, Whole Foods.

Austin has a lot of things to brag about over Houston, such as it's hills, air quality and live music scene. But, to try to compete on economic terms with Houston suggests that you are smoking a little too much of something else that Austin is famous for.

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I hope Houston diversifies even more than it did in the late 80's. Otherwise, i am afraid Houston may fall into a Detroit-like state of stagnation. On the other hand, i read the other day, that Houston has been continually growing as a city in people and economics at a steady rate for the last 50 years! So, who knows what our future holds.

m.

I doubt Houston will find itself in the state that Detroit is. It has diversified since the 80s. With Houston's ship channel, TMC and other industries other than oil I doubt that it will ever come to stagnation

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Here is an artical about it.

World-renowned architects designing Austin high-rise

Tower at Fifth and Congress could be city's tallest.

By Shonda Novak

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Thursday, May 11, 2006

A renowned architectural firm that created one of the world's tallest buildings is designing what could become Austin's tallest high-rise

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