Approval of new highrise delayed

The approval process for a seven-story purpose built student housing project proposed for downtown has been delayed indefinitely, according to city staff.

The 75 Sylvan Street project, proposed for the west side of the block of Guadalupe Street between San Antonio Street and Martin Luther King Drive, was set to have a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) hearing before the Planning and Zoning Commission on April 23 and a hearing at a City Council meeting on May 21.

“It has been postponed indefinitely while the applicant works on addressing staff comments,” city staff said in an email. 

Developers are seeking a CUP for the construction of purpose built student housing and an alternative compliance request for additional stories for the building. The plan is for a 5- to 7-story development on a 2.18-acre building site with 2,500 square foot of retail space, 299 housing units, a basement parking garage with 256 spaces, another 203 parking spaces on the ground floor and 55 more spaces on the second floor. 

Staff comments and responses listed on the city’s permitting and permit-tracking website mygovernmentonline.org indicate that city planning staff have brought up several issues with plans for the development. Sun shade, water quality and criteria for the student housing CUP, height alternate and site are mentioned as issues.

An email from planner Will Parrish notes that the “current proposal has parking garage abutting much of the Guadalupe frontage. This is not a positive pedestrian experience and is prohibited by code.”

Parrish also states that a planned pedestrian passage does not meet the basic code requirement of a 20-foot width and that the alley on one side of the building appears to be only 16 feet wide when the minimum right-of-way for a commercial alley is 24 feet. 

Parrish also suggests to the developers, “Please re-review Downtown Design Guidelines, it is not clear that this was reviewed prior to architectural design.”

The developers responded to Parrish’s suggestions with either clarifications or statements on how they plan to resolve the issues.

The project description filed with the city states, “The project’s location will be attractive to students regardless of marketing. If more than 50 percent of the residents are students, the primary purpose of the property becomes housing for students. This project will meet the definition of Purpose Built Student Housing regardless of the design of the individual units …”

The description also says that the development could “transition in the future to accommodating a more diverse population” but that the design of individual units has not yet been evaluated for that purpose.

“We acknowledge that the conventional bed/bath parity of purpose built student housing does not easily transition to conventional multifamily,” the description states. “We have not fully evaluated the design of the individual units within the building but anticipate there will be units that will have bed/bath parity.”

The project site consists of property that now includes the Gilcrease dental clinic and Blue Moon Optical on West San Antonio Street, the Street Eats food truck lot, Comet Cleaners, the Lone Star Party Buses lot, the former site of Dixon’s Furniture, Studio 13, the Kyndall Building, Buzzmill and the small building behind Buzzmill that had served as an office for Keller Williams real estate and for CASA of Central Texas, among other purposes. 

The applicant for the CUP is named on paperwork as 75 Sylvan Street LLC, which has an address in New Jersey. Thomas Rhodes from Buda-based TKAR Commercial Real Estate Services is named as the individual filing the application.