The downtown project, part of a city hall-office-residential complex, is finishing up the first phase of site work, which was the excavation for two levels of underground parking, Taylor Bowen, the AMLI vice president supervising the project, tells GlobeSt.com. He says the 220-unit project should start going vertical at the end of May. Units should begin delivering by the end of 2003 or early 2004, he says. While Bowen says AMLI expects the overall Austin apartment market to have picked up steam by then, he adds, "We feel the downtown market is holding up fairly well right now."

After an initial burst of action last year, Chicago-based AMLI halted work on the project until recently when it moved ahead without a joint venture partner. Bowen says AMLI is negotiating with a possible partner. "We're not across the goal line yet," he says.

The apartment project's block is bounded by West Second, Colorado, West Third and Lavaca streets. In addition to the apartments, the project will have 45,000 sf of retail and restaurants. Other parts of the overall project are a new Austin City Hall and plaza and two Computer Science Corp. office buildings.