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From yesterday’s Austin Business Journal
Eight organizations representing Austin real estate and business interests are demanding that the city get back on track with rewriting its land development code dubbed “CodeNext.”
Controversies about delays and budget overrides have surfaced in the past couple of months and one of the original members of the original Code Advisory Group — Melissa Neslund — resigned recently, citing her frustration with the process, which was supposed to be completed in September 2015.
The eight organizations, led by the Real Estate Council of Austin, held a press conference Wednesday urging the city to stop procrastinating and “re-litigating Imagine Austin,” said Cid Galindo, president of non-profit Evolve Austin Partners, in a statement.
Imagine Austin was the comprehensive plan adopted by the city in 2012, and CodeNext would codify the process for developers, businesses and residents to follow. But various outside interests have been calling into question issues that many thought were resolved with the adoption of Imagine Austin.
“It’s been four years since the roadmap for CodeNext was laid out in Imagine Austin, and we’re still without a draft of the code,” RECA President Ward Tisdale said in the statement. “Today the project is two years behind schedule, hundreds of thousands of dollars over budget and in jeopardy of collapsing under its own weight.”
Along with Evolve Austin Partners and RECA, the other organizations calling for immediate resolution to the delays and perceived interference are AURA, previously Austinites for Urban Rail Action, a grassroots organization; Austin Apartment Association; Austin Board of Realtors, Austin Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Austin Alliance and Home Builders Association of Greater Austin.
The real estate and business coalition said it expects to see a draft of the CodeNext no later than January 2017, supplemented by the following objectives — some that represent a radical shift from current regulations:
The code should include programs that incentivize the construction of below-market housing. Those programs need to be clear, effective, easily implemented and uniform throughout the city.
The code should provide options for missing mid-range and other more affordable housing options throughout the city with limited or no specific regulations as to quantity, density or lot and unit sizes.
The code should revise current concepts of compatibility to support denser options citywide.
The real life impacts from major code proposals should be measured using the Envision Tomorrow tool [a national and urban planning analysis program] and metrics-based planning tools. The impact of the proposed code must be analyzed before it is finalized.
As our founder was an entrepreneur and so many of our customers are hard working entrepreneurs, we would like to add our kudos to this year’s Austin winners of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, announced last night:
• Emerging winner: Ally Davidson, co-founder and co-CEO of Camp Gladiator
• Technology Services winner: Christopher Hester, CEO, Kinnser Software
• Real Estate, Construction and Infrastructure winner: Greg Henry, founder, Aspen Heights
• Transformational winner: Mark Watson, president and CEO, Argo Group International Holdings
• Emerging winner: Amy Porter, founder and CEO, AffiniPay LLC
• Technology winners: Hank Seale, founder and chairman; and Matt Flake, president and CEO, Q2 Software
Full story in today’s Austin Business Journal>>>
From the HellaWella blog:
We’re huge fans of standing desks. They help give your circulatory system a break from being sedentary for hours on end, and they may even help sharpen your focus. If you’re still on the fence, then check this out.
An innovative wearable technology for standing desks that creates a new way of interacting with your computer could reduce cyber-slacking and increase healthy movement.
Researchers at the University of Waterloo’s David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science are hoping to make computing a bit more fun and physically active all while helping computer users kick lazy habits by introducing a foot interaction method for computer users with a standing desk.
Professor Daniel Vogel presented Tap-Kick-Click: Foot Interaction for a Standing Desk at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Designing Interactive Systems 2016 in Brisbane, Australia this week.
The idea behind the research project, conducted with master’s student William Saunders, is that computer users at standing desks can increase their physical activity through indirect, discreet two-foot movements that include a combination of kicks, foot taps, jumps and standing postures that are tracked using a depth camera and instrumented shoes.
In addition to increasing physical activity while standing, these techniques use foot input as a cyber-slacking deterrent by requiring the user to stand in a mildly uncomfortable position, such as a lunge, while viewing social networking websites or other distracting content. When the user changes from that position, the distracting content locks again.
“People already use a standing desk to be healthier and more productive. Increasing physical activity by using your feet to enter commands is our main focus, but the anti-cyberslacking pose is something that really pushes the whole idea farther,” said Vogel. “Some people already install software to completely block sites like Facebook when they want to get work done. Our technique lets people use those sites, but since they need to stand in an uncomfortable pose while viewing them, they’re naturally encouraged to keep it brief.”
The researchers demonstrate the Tap-Kick-Click technique with a web browser, document reader and a code debugger, but the system can be paired with almost any desktop application. An on-screen guide helps the user remember and perform associated foot actions while taking a break from working with their hands.
“There’s plenty of research showing that using feet to type or move a cursor isn’t a very good idea. We demonstrate that with the right style of interaction, feet are a good fit for slower tasks with intermittent input. Things like scrolling a webpage while reading or interactive code debugging,” said Vogel. “We hope our system can make computing more physically active and maybe even a bit more fun.”
The genesis of Texas Coffee Traders was simple; R.C. Beall drank a good cup of coffee, then a very, very bad cup of coffee and wondered how they could be so different.
A Montana forestry ranger originally from Houston, R.C. bought an old roasting machine complete with five bags of green coffee beans he found in a barn and started experimenting. He decided this could be a business and started Montana Coffee Traders in 1981, eventually growing it into the sustainable business and community hub he had envisioned.
But Texas was calling him home, so he returned, reconnected with and married Beth and then together they founded Texas Coffee Traders in an old Austin warehouse on East 4th in 1994. They had the same goal of roasting and serving fresh, high quality Fair Trade coffee in a 
relaxed, friendly neighborhood place, becoming an integral part of the Austin community and giving back to that community.
According to Beth Beall, it is that same sensibility and community involvement that first drew them to Miller IDS. In her words, “they get us”! Beth says they generally come to Miller with a vague concept and Miller takes that concept to a whole new level, realized in visual collateral such as banners, signage 
and adhesives that underscore Texas Coffee Traders’ solid reputation and credibility, but allow their unique, self-described “quirkiness” to shine through.
We are big fans and hope to see you there! If you can’t make it by, you can purchase their excellent coffee in their online shop at texascoffeetraders.com
To celebrate June, we are featuring the bright and beautiful artwork of Melissa Knight. Melissa works with batik, a centuries-old wax-dye resist process traditionally used to make designs/patterns on fabric.
Melissa dabbled part-time for years in multiple media, seeking a creative outlet but had never considered making art full time. However, when their child was born almost seven years ago, Melissa’s full-time artist husband, Ethan Azarian, encouraged her to quit her job and take the time to fully develop the batik work she had been trying. She creates collage designs, preferring this style to the more traditional batik design, enjoying the surprises of batik; the crackles and the layers of colors that emerge in the wax-dye process. When inclusion in the Blue Genie Art Bazaar last year required more pieces, Melissa began working with Miller IDS to scan and print her batiks and the prints have proved quite popular, as they reproduce the textures and layers of the art. Inspired by the seasons, much of her work, such as the featured “Hummingbirds and Flowers”, includes local flora and fauna.
Melissa’s batiks may be seen on her website or currently at Mockingbird Domestics. Melissa also participates in the annual East Austin Studio Tour at her home studio Blue Cow Studio.
From today’s Austin Business Journal:
The rapidly gentrifying East Riverside Drive corridor presents tenants and homebuyers with a plethora of new housing options but the neighborhood has a significant drawback. There isn’t nearly enough retail to serve the mushrooming population.
Commercial real estate broker Jim Young, principal of Longbow Real Estate Group, has been studying the corridor on behalf of several clients and posted a blog on his website about the retail gap and potential investment opportunities.
Based on data culled from ESRI, a research company that is utilized by the Certified Commercial Investment Members professional organization to which Young belongs, the area shown in the accompanying map currently supports $284 million dollars of retail activity annually. The map shows the area within a five-minute drive of 2015 E. Riverside Drive, a retail strip center where Emo’s music venue is located and near the center of the development activity.
But the capacity of retailers within those parameters is only $191 million annually.
“When there is an unmet need, we call it a retail gap because money is leaking out of the trade area,” Young said. That gap is certain to grow, he added.
Hundreds of luxury apartments have opened in the past two years and single-family home communities also have delivered.
Standard Pacific Homes is underway with an infill community dubbed “Park East,” near East Riverside and Montopolis drives.
Young’s client Presidium Group is developing more than 400 apartments at 1600 Pleasant Valley Road.
Nearby, the biggest game changer in recent history will occur when Oracle Corp. builds its 560,000-square-foot campus on the south shore of Lady Bird Lake just west of Pleasant Valley Drive. Some 1,000 employees are expected to be based there, and Oracle purchased an adjacent apartment building with the expectation of providing workforce housing.
Though an HEB Plus Grocery Co. store serves the area, the rest of the retail offerings tend toward fast food restaurants and smaller service providers. The need for more retail development is larger than expected, Young said.
“I’m really surprised by this gap, but East Riverside has changed so dramatically in the last five years both in population and resident income,” he said. “Clearly there’s a new income demographic for the area and it makes sense in hindsight that the retail gap is so large. Someone much smarter than me once said, ‘Retail follows rooftops.'”
Young said he hopes shedding light on the scarcity of retail in an area, which previously was a bulwark of student housing and lower-income households, will lead to more stores and restaurants.
“My hope is that retail and mixed-use developers with creative vision will look deeper at East Riverside Drive as an area to bring some major projects to Austin,” Young said. More information>>>
This is the perfect month to feature the work of Greg Barton, as the Austinite’s artwork will appear in the West Austin Studio Tour May 14/15 & 21/22, which Miller IDS is proud to sponsor.
Greg’s unique style of using his fingers – as well as the occasional rag – to apply paint produces almost Impressionistic images which strongly evoke a sense of place. Most of his work is of landscapes, either his beloved Texas or Cape Cod scenes, all of which draw the viewer in by sharing the colors and light of the scene effectively. The image featured here, entitled “Gray Day 2” was inspired by summer visits to the Cape marshes and their timeless salt-weathered houses.
For more of Greg’s work, please come by to meet him and view his work up close at the Linc Collective Artist Group during the West Austin Studio Tour, or visit his website.
From today’s Austin Business Journal:
Alcoa Inc. has put its Texas land holdings on the market for $250 million, which include a vast array of water rights that could be the biggest known deal of its kind ever struck in the Lone Star State.
The property — known as Sandow Lakes Ranch — being sold by the New York-based metals manufacturer totals nearly 33,800 acres. The land spans three counties and sits about 45 miles east of downtown Austin.
“This is the largest water deal of its kind,” said Bernard Uechtritz, who is the Dallas broker behind the sale of the famed $725 million Waggoner Ranch .”It has an incredible amount of holding capacity and that holding capacity could be increased.”
Uechtritz is marketing Sandow Lakes Ranch, which stretches 30 miles long across three Texas counties, on behalf of the seller, Alcoa, through his newly formed company, Dallas-based International Icon Properties.
The ranch includes 14 lakes covering 1,960 surface acres, totaling 48,379 acre-feet of water. Each year, the ranch is permitted 44,000 acre feet of water through the Simsboro Aquifer with an additional 14,000 acre-feet available for permitting.
An additional 18,000 acre-feet of surface water from the Little River run through the property. By selling the ranch, Alcoa would transfer 100 percent of its water rights.
Uechtritz said the company has won a number of environmental awards for its operations and the water — which is continuously checked — could be bottled for consumption today.
As part of the deal, Alcoa would like to leaseback portions of the ranch, which includes two power plants operated by lignite with rail service. The metals manufacturer has been working at the property since the 1950s, at a time when Alcoa was mining coal on the land.
Along with water rights, the acquisition of Sandow Lakes Ranch includes:
This is the first time Alcoa has taken the property to market since acquiring it about 100 years ago. Much like Waggoner Ranch, Uechtritz said he plans to market it worldwide through September. Uechtritz expects to select a buyer by the end of the year.
“We’ve got a lot of interest in the property,” he said. “There is so many end users for it — whether it’s bottling or municipalities or conservation — it’s a multi-faceted property from industrial to commercial to agricultural.”
One of the interested buyers could be Central Texas Regional Water Supply Corp. It has proposed a billion-dollar-plus pipeline, which, if built, would deliver water to San Antonio. The proposed 142-mile pipeline would likely cross the southern end of Sandow Lakes Ranch.
“We have the chance to put this in the right hands,” Uechtritz said. “This is an oasis outside of Austin that can really serve the community.”
From today’s Austin Business Journal:
Velocity Crossing, a 390-acre mixed-use development near the airport with almost 2 million square feet of office space and hundreds of apartments planned, is expected to receive a zoning change Thursday from Austin City Council that would clear the way for work to begin.
The land is owned by local investors including Karl Koebel and Doug Launius. Austin Business Journal broke the news about the development in a March 2015 cover story about the booming Southeast Austin submarket.
The development will be off State Highway 71 east of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and have up to 410,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, 1.5 million square feet of industrial space, 893 apartment units, a 10-screen movie theater, 1,200 hotel rooms and 26 acres of open space, the Austin American-Statesman reports. Construction is expected to wrap up in 2025 but no estimate was given for when it might begin.City Council gave preliminary approval to the zoning change in March.
Southeast Austin has seen increasing development activity lately as investors and homebuyers flock to the open spaces and lower prices outside the urban core and the relatively built-out North Austin submarket. Projects in the area include Brookfield Residential’s Addison and Easton Park master-planned communities plus the forthcoming Pilot Knob.
“It’s really all about transportation access,” Koebel told ABJ last year. “You can get to a job downtown in 15 minutes.”
