You may have noticed that at the beginning of the
month the McDonald’s on MLK closed. What is coming in its place is a 15 story
hotel. It will have two brands of the Marriott Hotel chain in one building. I
believe it will be both a Marriott and an Autograph hotel. The developer of
this project is a group out of Indiana called White Lodging. They own and
operate a number of hotels in Austin, more than 25.
The old McDonald’s lot is only 7 tenths of an acre. So
they are squeezing this hotel in with a shoe horn. Their building will come up
directly to our property line next to the school. The distance from their wall
and the facing wall of the school is about four feet. One interesting
possibility is the idea of paving that area and having a walkway from our garage
back to the alley and so on to the front of our church. Obviously, during
construction you will not be able to cut through the McDonald’s lot to the
front of our church. The passage through the blacktop however still works.
Not only are the developers building up, but they are
also going down three and a half stories for underground parking. This hole
will be immediately adjacent to our property. Therefore, we have some concerns.
They claim they can construct this project without our
help, but it would be cheaper and more profitable if they can get our agreement
to let them put tie-backs under our school during the construction of their
garage wall along our property. There is also a “heritage tree” that is half on
our property and half on theirs that requires our permission to remove. And of
course we have many concerns about noise, dust, traffic, safety, crane swing,
possible damage to our building, etc.
Once the project is completed we believe it will be a
positive addition to our neighborhood. But in the meantime we want to make sure
their project does not negatively impact us, or if it does, that we will be
appropriately compensated for our loss and hassle. Since the developer is a
very large company with a not entirely stellar reputation in Austin, the School
Advisory Board and the parish have engaged land use attorneys from the Drenner
Group to represent us. With them and White Lodging we worked through a license
agreement for the tiebacks, etc. We then presented them with a dollar figure of
X which we thought would make us whole. They responded with a figure exactly
one tenth of X. So some negotiation was required.
On Thurs., June 30 we had a meeting at the offices of
their attorneys, Armbrust & Brown PLLC on Congress Avenue. Representing our
side was Steve Beuerlein, chair of the St Austin Property Comm., Ted Smith,
chair of the School Advisory Board, Tara Cevallos, the new St Austin School
Principal, Steve Drenner, and a couple others from the Drenner Group. Also with
us and very helpful was the Chancellor of the Diocese of Austin, Deacon Ron
Walker. On their side was Patrick Carlson from
their law firm, Dino Yiankes the President and CEO of development for White
Lodging, Adam Estes their local project manager, and a few others.
It
was interesting to watch. I said nothing. I was simply there to “show the
collar” as Deacon Ron Walker said. Ted Smith gave a very good explanation of
our situation, our desire to see the project move forward, but our need to not
incur any loss because of this project. After an hour or so of posturing and
inflated statements, they withdrew and our side caucused among ourselves. They
did the same. When we came back together, over lunch, there was a more amenable
tone. Each side moved some, but still not to a point of agreement. Sufficient
progress was made so that it was agreed the lawyers could work out the last
hurdles.
So
for the next two years I expect that there will be construction on the old
McDonald’s site. This means some disruption and inconvenience in the form of
traffic, lane closures, dust, noise, and construction. Austin is changing, and
changing dramatically. We will do everything we can at the parish and school to
minimize disruption. We have been scouting out options and thinking of creative
possibilities. But just as we are getting through our own renovation project
with patience and understanding, we will need the same with our new neighbor to
the school.
No comments:
Post a Comment