Although the site can accommodate up to 750,000 sf, it more realistically will boast a 500,000-sf to 530,000-sf building, Tim Hendricks, senior vice president of the Austin office, tells GlobeSt.com. Hendricks says the project must have 90,000 sf preleased before it can begin. The situation is looking good as talks progress with tenant prospects. Hendricks says the premier space should fetch between $28 and $32 per sf triple net given Austin's current occupancy and CBD rates.

It is highly unlikely that the plan will be put on a backburner despite current gloom-and-doom economic reports. Entitlements are in place and the tedious task of document processing has begun. Even if tenants are signed, the earliest that the project conceivably could get under way would be June, says Hendricks.

This will be Cousins Stone's second CBD undertaking in the eight-year history of the Austin office. The first had been a 433,000-sf redevelopment of a class A property that had been completed in 1998. "We're real bullish on the Austin economy as a whole," emphasizes Hendricks. Cousins Stone's Austin office also has 300,000 sf under development in a two-building project in Research Park Plaza and is finishing the last 200,000 sf of a one million-sf campus for Motorola. The project will wrap up in May.