Posted: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 02:30 PM - 6,756 Readers

By: Ralph K.M. Haurwitz and Shonda Novak

photo by Cooper, Robertson & Partners/Architecture Urban Design

Consultants' report on Brackenridge tract stops short of disclosing value of land.

It would cost $3.2 billion under one scenario and $2.6 billion under another to transform the University of Texas' Brackenridge tract into a neighborhood with thousands of housing units as well as shops, offices, parkland, trails and hotels.

Those figures emerged Wednesday from an analysis of the 350-acre West Austin parcel prepared for the UT System Board of Regents by Cooper, Robertson & Partners LLP and a team of subcontractors.

The four-volume report by the New York-based architectural and urban planning firm and its subcontractors, most of them based in Austin, stopped short of putting a price tag on the land or the lease income it could generate for the university. That part of the firm's financial analysis is still under way, but officials said the results would not be disclosed publicly because doing so could distort what developers might be willing to offer.

"It puts a state agency at a competitive disadvantage if it has to put all its cards out on the table," said Florence Mayne, executive director of real estate for the UT System.

Still, there's little doubt that the land, with nearly 2 miles of Colorado River waterfront and adjacent to the tony Tarrytown neighborhood, could well be valued at hundreds of millions of dollars. The regents have said they would prefer to lease the property rather than sell it.

James Huffines, chairman of the regents, has also made it clear that it could be months, or even years, before the board decides how to proceed, and he has emphasized that Cooper's recommendations are just that and are subject to modification.

Moreover, a committee of the university's Faculty Council has suggested scrapping Cooper's recommendations and developing an environmental science campus with a museum, laboratories, classrooms and a research park.

The firm's report fleshes out details of two conceptual plans outlined in June by company officials. Both plans call for eliminating the 141-acre Lions Municipal Golf Course and two apartment complexes for students.

A university-owned apartment complex off Sixth Street, a short distance from the tract, would be enlarged.

The Village Plan, Cooper's preferred option, would cost $3.2 billion, including $130 million for streets, parks and other infrastructure. Residential, office and other space would total 15 million square feet, including 8,698 housing units.

The university's 82-acre biological field laboratory would be relocated to the Lower Colorado River Authority's

McKinney Roughs site in Bastrop County.

The Park Plan would cost $2.6 billion, with 12 million square feet and 6,645 housing units. Under this plan, the field lab would be retained but downsized.

The costs under both plans would potentially be borne by a number of parties, including the UT System, developers, the Texas Department of Transportation for possible modifications to MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) access ramps and the City of Austin for utilities.

Anthony de Bruyn, a spokesman for the UT System, said the report would be reviewed by a special committee of regents established in August. The panel consists of Regents Printice Gary, Janiece Longoria and Gene Powell. De Bruyn said a public comment session would be held sometime between now and the end of the academic year in May.

Any move by the regents to further develop the tract — portions are already leased for a Randalls grocery store, the LCRA's headquarters, an apartment complex, shops and restaurants, as well as the golf course — could generate quite a bit of excitement in real estate circles.

Charles Heimsath, a local real estate consultant and a subcontractor on the Cooper team, said that "outside of downtown, it is the prime underutilized infill location for development in the Austin market. Essentially, it's Tarrytown South."

In addition to its waterfront acreage, he said, the site "has terrific demographics." Within a one-mile radius of Lake Austin and Exposition boulevards, Heimsath estimated, the average household income is $150,000 a year, twice the Austin average.

Heimsath said he would expect to see bids from some of the same players that vied to redevelop the Green Water Treatment Plant, where the city envisions its biggest downtown redevelopment project to date.

"You have to be a very strong player with a long track record in order to play in this game," Heimsath said.

But until the UT regents decide which parcels to develop and when, it's too early to speculate which developers might make offers, he said.

Last year, the Austin City Council selected Trammell Crow and its partners, Constructive Ventures and USAA Real Estate Co., for the Green project over four other teams: Catellus Development, Forest City, Simmons Vedder Partners Inc. and Stratus Properties Inc.

Several developers said it's too soon to gauge their interest in redeveloping the Brackenridge tract.

"We're watching it and keeping an eye on it," said Greg Weaver, president of Catellus, the master-developer the city chose to transform the former Mueller airport in Northeast Austin into the city's largest and densest mixed-use project. Weaver said that "there are lots of unknowns," from transportation issues that will have to be addressed to how the project will be received by surrounding neighborhoods and other constituencies.

John McKinnerney, a partner with Simmons Vedder, said the firm would be interested "at the appropriate time."

"Given the fact that there is little to no debt or equity capital available today for new development, it is a waste of time to consider new development opportunities in this environment," he said, adding that many companies are focused now on "trying to figure out how to make it through the next couple of years intact."

Kirk Rudy, managing principal with Austin-based Endeavor Real Estate Group LLC, recently said that the firm was not pursuing the project.

Heimsath said one attractive aspect of the Mueller project was its large size, 711 acres, "so you could really create a community within a community that has its own identity." Brackenridge, he said, is large enough to do the same.

The UT System's Mayne outlined Cooper's proposals to hundreds of real estate professionals, business executives and civic leaders Wednesday. She reiterated that the planning process for redeveloping the site will be "a very, very long horizon," spanning well into the next decade, noting that some of the leases on the land will be expiring "over the next practically 50 years."