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PUBLIC-PRIVATE
POWER . TEXAS ARCHITECT
MAY-JUNE 2018 . HTTPS://TXAMAGAZINE.ORG
For four decades, the Seaholm Power Plant generated electricity for Austin. After decommissioning, it sat mostly vacant for the
next 25 years. Becoming an occasional cultural venue and beloved sentinel of industrial dereliction in a town without much of
an industrial past. Now reborn as a mixed-use development of residences, office space, and retail. It is another example of how
downtown Austin is creating urban density.
... This turned out to be an essential ingredient in Seaholm's success. Soon after the project was awarded to the developer
Southwest Strategies Group and architecture firm STG Design in 2005, the financial crisis of 2007-08 turned the market on its
head. "When we started competing for Seaholm, mixed-use projects were really the hot thing," says John Rosato, a principal
at Southwest Strategies Group. "The projects that incorporated hotel, office, condo, commercial — all of that together really
were doing well. When the crisis hit, almost all of those started to fail, for various reasons. The outcome was that banks were no
longer interested in funding mixed-use projects."
The initial scheme located offices and a hotel in the tower, apartments in the low-rise structure, and retail space in the turbine
hall. After the crisis, the program was rearranged: Apartments were located in the tower, retail and commercial in the low-rise
structure, and a corporate headquarters — the offices of Athenahealth, designed by Charles Rose architects — in the turbine
hall. While construction was underway, Southwest, noting a pent-up demand, switched the tower apartments to condos. It
turned out to be the right move. All of the tower's 275 condos sold in 10 days, and by the time Southwest sold its interest in
the project it was able to reimburse the city 100 percent of its investment.