Austin Business Journal shares, "the end of construction is in sight for the Sixth and Guadalupe high-rise. But already, the view from the top of Austin's tallest building is unlike anything else in the city.
The 66-story mixed-use tower, which broke ground in 2019, could welcome its first apartment residents in October, said Tony Curp, senior vice president of development at Kairoi Residential. Sixth and Guadalupe is being developed by Kairoi, which is handling the residential portion; Lincoln Property Co., which is handling the commercial portion; and investor DivcoWest. The tower was designed by Gensler and JE Dunn Construction Group is the general contractor.
Curp this week hosted Austin Business Journal on an exclusive first-look tour of the tower, from the penthouses at the peak of the 875-foot-tall building to the ground floor, where Kimbal Musk will open the first Austin location of The Kitchen restaurant.
Curp acknowledged there have been a couple of delays, far from unexpected on a project of this magnitude: "The Covid thing hit and that threw a wrench into things, but the city was great during that and we worked through it."
Several of the building’s apartments are finished, though there’s still plenty of work to be done completing the rest, including the penthouse suites and amenity decks midway up and at the top of the tower.
The apartments in the tower will be known as The Residences at 6G, and pre-leasing has already begun, according to an April 5 announcement. There will be a total of 349 luxury apartments in the building.
The big question hanging over the tower is who will fill its office space. Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc. in late 2021 leased all 589,000 square feet of office space in the tower, but reversed course last year and has decided to put the space up for sublease instead of filling it with tech workers.
Curp didn't sound too worried about the office portion of the building, especially with Meta (Nasdaq: META) still on the hook for payments.
"Meta signed a lease and they're our tenant," Curp said. "What they decide to do with it is kind of up to them, but I don’t really know anything else."
In addition to the ample residential and office space, the tallest tower in Austin has about 10,000 square feet of retail space at ground level. That is where Musk will set up shop, with the fourth location of his American bistro.
The Sixth and Guadalupe developers were flooded with applications for the space, Curp said, and narrowed the list to about six before selecting Musk's concept.
The building still has about 1,600 square feet of retail space available on the southeast corner. Kairoi has been in talks with several coffee shops and donut shops, according to Curp, as the company searches for a tenant that can cater to morning foot traffic, such as the employees coming in to work.
Curp did not disclose the retail rent but said it is about market price or slightly above considering the magnitude of this vertical mixed-use project. Retail leases in Austin’s Central Business District are averaging about $48 per square foot, according to data from CBRE.
Sixth and Guadalupe has been a huge undertaking, but Kairoi and Lincoln aren't resting on their laurels. Easily visible from the tower on the west side of downtown is their next project: construction is well underway for Waterline, a tower expected to rise 74 stories and 1,022 feet over the Rainey Street district, which would make it the tallest tower in Texas. That project will also feature office, multifamily and commercial uses.
Curp said Kairoi has even more in its Austin development pipeline, although it's likely next project will be a bit different: the firm is planning a mixed-use development on 116 acres in East Austin. A total of 5 to 7 million square feet of multifamily, office, restaurant and hospitality space is planned at 827 Ed Bluestein Dr., where a concrete and asphalt production facility stands today.
Kairoi "just filed" a rezoning application for mixed-use development at that location, Curp said. The Towers blog wrote about the application last week, reporting that a maximum building height of 180 feet is requested."
Source: Austin Business Journal
Written by: Cody Baird
Published: April 12, 2023
Posted by Grossman & Jones Group on
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