Fast-growing Austin adds a $3 billion community

The nation’s fastest-growing large metro area is getting even bigger, with the addition of a $3 billion, 66-acre community. In Austin, Texas, construction has begun on the master-planned Uptown ATX development. The project will introduce workspace, multifamily, retail, hospitality, and a new metro rail station to what’s being called Austin’s second downtown. 

Uptown ATX will transform what used to be a single-use, auto-centric office complex into a transit-oriented, mixed-use neighborhood, part of a burgeoning technology hub in Northwest Austin. Uptown ATX will feature 3.2 million square feet of workspace, 2.9 million square feet of multifamily units, 600,000 square feet of retail and hospitality, and 11 acres of public open space. It also will include a new metro rail station, providing a mass transit connection to downtown Austin and the larger region.

Since 2019, SWA/Balsley, supported by Austin-based Coleman & Associates, has been collaborating with Brandywine Realty Trust, Trammell Crow Residential, and a multidisciplinary team of designers, planners, and engineers on the public realm of Uptown ATX. The SWA Balsley team is designing and implementing the project’s streetscapes, seven public parks and plazas, and amenity terraces for two development blocks. 

The SWA/Balsley team’s various landscape projects, currently in design or construction, include Walnut Springs Lake Park, one of Uptown ATX’s signature open spaces. The lake’s central water body will function as a combination detention-retention pond that captures, stores, and cleans much of the development’s stormwater runoff. Other landscape projects include a 40,000-square-foot terrace uniting an office tower and a residential tower, as well as pedestrian-oriented streetscapes and a public park serving a multifamily complex with 529 units.

Uptown ATX is owned by Brandywine Realty Trust, with one section co-owned by Trammel Crowe Residential. Page Southerland Page and GFF Architects provide the architectural services. The civil engineer is Kimley-Horn; MEP engineer, Jordan & Skala; structural engineers, Walter P Moore and Viewtech, Inc.; and general contractor, White Construction (with more engineers and contractors to be announced).