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Retailers and Builders Focus on West Fifth Street
By Kathryn | July 20, 2008
There isn’t a part of downtown Austin that has gone untouched in the face of the area’s growth. However, the west end of downtown has received less attention from investors to date than other areas of the neighborhood. That fact has started to change as both retailers and residential builders have turned their attention to the emerging popularity of West Fifth Street. This street serves as a manjor gateway into downtown and people are starting to realize that this gives it an invaluable position in an area that is seeing extensive growth and development. Existing businesses are getting a facelift, new businesses are going up and recently-constructed apartment buildings are already filling up with people who want to live in this hot new part of downtown.
The West Fifth Street area is an area that should have been attractive to people for a long time. After all, it leads straight into downtown Austin and is passed through daily by people commuting to work in the downtown area. However, it has long been a place that people ignored because it was only filled with warehouses and car lots. A few retail shops and restaurants hung in there over the years but there wasn’t much reason for most people to head to the area. That has changed as those old businesses have made improvements and new businesses have come into the area.
One of the biggest businesses to ignite the trendiness of this neighborhood was Whole Foods. When it came to the neighborhood, people started paying attention to what was going on there. This sparked a realization among local business owners that West Fifth could be a great place for investment. New restaurants and retail shops seem to be popping up almost daily in the area now. This is boosted by the fact that there are some major building projects here; over 300 apartments are expected to be erected by year’s end and the area will also get its first big office project since the Frost Bank Tower went up four years ago.
One of the most interesting projects to date has been the building of 5th Street Commons, a mixed-use building located at West Fifth and Campbell which is due to open in December. A similar mixed-use building called Pressler will open on the north end of West Fifth in March. Together these two buildings will bring over 300 apartments and 60,000 square feet of retail space to West Fifth. The popularity of the up-and-coming neighborhood is evidenced by the fact that the majority of these apartments are already pre-rented to people who can’t wait to live in this area.
Topics: Upcoming Projects |