Colliers Oxford Commercial of Austin is heading up the $4.5-million effort that will transform the former Yaring's women's store into a three-story building with ground-floor retail and upstairs offices. "It's a total renovation," Stephen Sanders, the broker who's heading up the project. "We're not going in, shoring up members and we're not gutting it and fixing. We're actually tearing it down, all but the façade. We're taking it down to dirt."

The building, at 506 N. Congress, is the former home of Yaring's, a store that sold women's wear. Yaring's was a chain of 10 stores operated by the Schmidt family of Austin. The stores closed in 1997, four years after the Schmidt's sold the company.

The current property owner wants to take advantage of the building's location just south of the intersection of Congress Avenue and Sixth Street, the heart of the city's CBD. "It's hard to beat Sixth and Congress," says Colliers Oxford's Kevin Kimbrough, the project's leasing agent.