One Austin developer's true 'tall' tale, Perry Lorenz
Story by Shonda Novak, Austin American-Statesman • 28m ago
Hello, and thank you for subscribing to Building Austin, our weekly newsletter focused on real estate, growth and development in the Austin region. I'm Shonda Novak, the American-Statesman's real estate reporter.
I had occasion to chat with Perry Lorenz last week for an upcoming article about downtown Austin.
Lorenz knows downtown as well as — heck, better than most — due to his longevity as an Austin-area real estate developer, investor, landowner and landlord, both downtown and East Austin. In both areas, he was a pioneer of mid- and high-rise development starting more than two decades ago.
Lorenz is one of those legendary former Austin hippies from a bygone era who attended the University of Texas, earning a bachelor's degree in English and a few years later, an MBA.
He has been credited with trying to help save landmark Austin venues like the iconic Hole in the Wall, a campus-area live music venue, and trying, though without success, to spare Eddie Wilson's beloved Threadgill's south Austin restaurant location at West Riverside Drive and Barton Springs Road from closing a few years ago.
As high-rise development proliferated exponentially on Austin's skyline starting in the 2000s, Lorenz has been known for his involvement as a co-developer of downtown's highest-profile towers. They include Spring, the 42-story condo building near Whole Foods Market's flagship store and headquarters at West Sixth Street and Lamar Boulevard on downtown's west end, and The Independent, the 58-story condo high-rise (also known as the "Jenga tower" for its stacked, offset design) in downtown's Seaholm District.
During our conversation, Lorenz dropped a detail that I wasn't aware of, but thought interesting to share.
Lorenz said he has owned — or controlled through partnerships — many of the sites (all virtually full city blocks) where some of downtown Austin's tallest buildings now stand — or soon will, in the case of the Waterline skyscraper now under construction in downtown's booming Rainey Street District.
The sites that Lorenz has co-owned or controlled have given rise to:
- The Independent and Spring condominium towers
- Waterline, the 74-story mixed-use tower on track to become the tallest skyscraper on Austin's skyline, and in all of Texas for that matter
- The ritzy 47-story Austin Fairmont hotel at East Cesar Chavez and Red River streets, which was built on land that Lorenz and business partner Robert Knight lease to the hotel
- The Bowie, a 36-story apartment tower near Whole Foods downtown
- 300 West Sixth, a 23-story office building downtown
- Sixth and Guadalupe, a 66-story mixed-use skyscraper under construction at that address. Sixth and Guadalupe currently stands as the tallest building on the Austin skyline — at least for now, until Waterline eclipses it.
Lorenz credits being "in the right business at the right time in the right town" for his ownership of the dirt where downtown's newest generation of towers have risen.
"For the most part I got involved early, well before Austin became the center of the universe of booming downtowns," Lorenz said.
Before the 1990s, "there was no real fascination with downtown Austin real estate," Lorenz recalls. "I believe every Class A office building up to that point had failed and had been taken back by the lender. Those projects got built — but no one came. There were very few buyers and so little competition when buying down town property because projects simply didn't work financially. And all of that was complicated by the devastating bank/savings and loan bust that started in 1986."
In addition, for those who may not know, here are a few other colorful factoids about Lorenz: He was one of the original bartenders at Austin's famed Soap Creek Saloon back in the day; he made sandwiches in the kitchen the night Pecan Street Cafe opened on East Sixth Street; he ran a printshop producing posters and underground comic books in San Francisco; and he appeared in, and was involved with, the making of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie in 1974.
He's also a former longtime member, and past chairman, of both the city of Austin's Downtown Commission the city's Design Commission.
My work isn’t possible without Statesman subscribers. If you subscribe, thank you! And if you don’t, please consider supporting us today.Have tips or story ideas? Contact me at 512.913.4503, snovak@statesman.com or @snovak999.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: One Austin developer's true 'tall' tale
Comments
Post a Comment