Work on the project, called Nuevo Mercado, halted for nearly six months while developers ironed out a title problem. Now, Steve Bauman and Robert Anderson of Z Development, LLC are getting into building the $40 million project that would brings, shops, offices and residential units to a square block occupied by an abandoned grocery, houses-turned-into-businesses and shacks. It's about seven blocks from the Texas capitol.
"We're heading into our final pieces of the working drawings, putting financial partners into place," Z's president Bauman tells GlobeSt.com. "We lost a few in the process of the title glitch, that plus Sept. 11. Then we're starting into our construction capital process as well."
Bauman says the developers have yet to file formal documents with the city of Austin, but has talked to city officials and neighborhood residents. They all seem to support the project, he says. The project hopes to break ground in six to nine months and remain under construction for two years.
This marks a significant development for the East Sixth Street area, which has had little new construction and certainly nothing of the magnitude that Bauman and Robert Anderson, Z's vice president, have planned for the Nuevo Mercado project.
The developers hope to mitigate the project's impact on the neighborhood by helping elderly residents stay there. Bauman says a portion of the money from the project's rents will go to the neighborhood association, which could use the money to offset property tax increases caused by the project. "We're trying to make it so we can integrate new business and development and not totally change so only the wealthy can afford to live there," he says.
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