A Lakeway Hospital Forum was presented by Keller Williams-Lake Travis Market Center in Lakeway on Nov. 1.
KW Residential Real Estate Broker Kenn Renner, Lakeway Regional Medical Center CEO David Kreye, Keller Williams Commercial’s Ross Frie and Lake Travis ISD Interim Superintendent Susan Bohn gave updates on the Lakeway Regional Medical Center and its effects on the housing/commercial real estate market.
Lakeway Regional Medical Center update
Kreye said the Level II Neonatal Intensive Care Unit hospital opening is planned to open April 2012. When it does, about 250 to 275 employees will staff the 275,000-square-foot building.
Upon opening the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design–certified building, there will be six surgical operating rooms, a 22-room, full-service emergency ward and an 18-bed intensive care unit, with all of the hospital rooms being private.
The hospital records will all be electronic.
“It’s a pretty technologically advanced hospital,” Kreye said.
Real estate market forecast
Renner gave a forecast for the housing market, saying there would be a shortage in rental homes in Lakeway when the hospital opened.
“We’re going to need more housing,” he said, pointing out that within the hospital’s ZIP code, only four homes were on the market for rent during the summer.
While Austin as a whole is a sellers market, with about 4.7 months of inventory, the Lakeway area is more of a buyers market with 6.7 months of inventory.
“We hoped those doctors moving in would help these numbers, but we found out from David [Kreye] that a lot of the physicians are local,” Renner said.
Renner said development continues heading west around Rough Hollow and Hamilton Pool Road.
Director of Commercial Real Estate for KW Commercial Ross Frie said the Lakeway area needs more multifamily homes to accommodate growth.
He said commercial real estate has mainly developed in the past five to six years along RR 620 and Hwy. 71.
“We’ve had a couple of big projects—the Hill Country Galleria had a big impact [on the area], and now the hospital will have another,” Frie said.
Lake Travis ISD bond election
As growth continues out west, Lake Travis ISD must expand to meet the needs of the community.
LTISD is holding a bond election of $158.5 million on Nov. 8 to accommodate growth.
“We have hired professional demographers, and they have told us to prepare for a population growth rate of 6 percent to 7 percent annually,” Bohn said.
She said the bond election would allow construction of new schools for the district as well as some renovations to current schools, technology upgrades and new buses for the district.
Bohn said if the bond is not approved, the district would need to use maintenance and operation funds for temporary classrooms.
In November 2010, Eanes ISD residents voted against three bonds totaling $148 million, causing the district to hold a much smaller bond election in May of $54 million, which the voters passed.
