East Riverside project would add

apartments, condos, extend hike and bike

trail

By Shonda Novak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Thursday, October 05, 2006

A local real estate investment firm plans an 840-unit apartment and condominium complex on East Riverside Drive, the biggest project by far in the residential boom in and near downtown.

The developer, CWS Capital Partners LLC, is offering to donate land to the city to extend the hike-and bike-trail eastward by a third of a mile

The company also wants permission build closer to Town Lake than city rules allow.

The project will replace apartment buildings at 222 and 300 East Riverside with three 18-story buildings, said Richard Suttle Jr., an attorney for the developer.

CWS would give the city about an acre of lakefront land worth millions of dollars as part of the project, Suttle said, as well as room for a park police substation.

That would help the city extend the hike and bike trail, which now ends just east of the Austin American- Statesman building, forcing runners and walkers onto sidewalks along a busy stretch of Riverside.

Suttle said he plans to meet with nearby residents today, hoping to gain their support for the project.

"I'm hoping there's some flexibility there. There's a good rationale for it," saying the developers would be adding trail and parkland area with public access along Town Lake.

The project would need approvals from the city Parks and Recreation Board and the Planning Commission because the developers want to build within 80 feet of Town Lake; city rules require a 150-foot setback.

Suttle said some of the current apartments, built more than 30 years ago, come as close as 20 feet.

CWS hasn't set prices, but Suttle said they will be competitive with other new downtown projects.

Many of those have been in the higher price ranges, although some newer ones have units in the $200,000 to $400,000 range.

Suttle said about 10 percent of the units would be reserved for people making less than 80 percent of the area's median income.

Although even some developers are beginning to ask whether there's enough demand to fill all the projects under way and planned, Suttle said, "My client's been in Austin more than 20 years. They wouldn't be pursuing this if they didn't think the demand was there."

The project would be one of more than a dozen residential and mixed-use projects planned in and around downtown. Increasingly, developers are turning to near-downtown areas where land is easier to find.

The biggest project under construction is Novare Group's 44-story, 432-unit condominium tower at West Third and Nueces streets.

CWS, with offices in Austin and Newport Beach, Calif., buys, develops, manages and owns residential and mixed-use projects across the nation.

The company has been active in the Austin market for nearly 30 years. It also is building a 330-unit apartment complex in West Campus near the University of Texas.