Downtown real estate firm expands to

second office

Austin Business Journal - 2:19 PM CDT Thursday, March 29, 2007

Urbanspace Realtors LLP--the company marketing many of the condo projects coming to downtown and Central Austin--is opening a second office to deal with its significant growth.

Urbanspace is creating a new 1,100-square-foot office on the ground floor of the new Sixth+Brushy development on East Sixth Street. That will alleviate congestion in the company's 2,500-square-foot existing office on the ground floor of the Austin City Lofts property. Urbanspace, which has grown to a staff of 21, focuses on brokerage, project marketing and development services.

"This is going to be an iconic building for the East side," says Urbanspace Principal Kevin Burns of the Sixth+Brushy property. "It's marking a reinforcement that urban living has become a way of living."

Burns founded Urbanspace in 2000 in anticipation of what he felt would be a boom in downtown residential projects.

"My biggest problem my first three years in business was that I didn't have anything to sell," Burns says. The boom has taken some time to arrive, but with numerous developments now slated from West End to the East side, developers are looking for a company with experience selling in the core," Burns says.

"It was really dumb luck and a strong belief in the urban core," that has won the company the strong list of clients it has today, Burns says. Burns credits his professional staff for the firm's success in helping developers realize the potential of urban Austin.

Urbanspace's project focus extends from urban high-rise to mixed-use development and urban retail districts to infill land sales. The company's residential projects include Milago, Sixth+Brushy and Satsuma 53. Representative retail and landlord clients include Progress Coffee and Villas on Sixth on the East side; and Estilo, Mototek, Loft and Leaf in the Second Street District.

"We wouldn't be able to expand our offices if some people hadn't thought downtown living was the great thing to do," Burns says.

Earlier this month Burns was recognized as the top residential real estate producer of 2006 by the Austin Business Journal with total sales of $79.53 million.