Oct
10
Mueller Town Center - When Will It Be Here?
Posted by Garreth Wilcock under For Buyers, For Sellers, Regional News, Mueller, New Homes, Urban Living
One of the first questions I get asked by people looking to buy a home at Mueller is “When is the Town Center going to be developed?”. Here’s the answer straight from the developer.
Greg Weaver at Catellus addressed the Mueller Neighborhood Association meeting today, and one of the topics discussed was the Town Center. There have been lots of discussions about the town center - for example a focus group 15 months ago as discussed in this Mueller blog.
Here’s the clip in which he talks about the potential timeline and challenges of developing the center.
In a nutshell he said:
- It could be three to five years out
- Perhaps it can be developed incrementally
- Maybe something will spring out of the Austin Children’s Museum moving here
- The developer is considering alternative development strategies
One interesting idea, which I hope isn’t a red herring, is to indulge in the Austin boom of Airstream restaurants. Greg said that he’d been watching videos of shipping container restaurants as one alternative. Check out one example of a Müvbox in action - a green shipping restaurant.
I for one would enjoy walking to eat a few Flip Happy Crepes and some Torchy’s tacos while I wait 3 years for the town center of my dreams. Will the news that the town center is so far out affect residential sales? That remains to be seen.
Garreth Wilcock is a Mueller Resident and Realtor® and represents buyers and sellers of homes at Mueller. What would you rather see? A full planned town center later, or an organic growth starting now - please feel free to comment!
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COMMENTS (4)
I wonder if any of your neighbors who engaged in the virtual tarring-and-feathering of yours truly for daring to suggest that the Town Center wasn't going to happen 'soon' (back in 2008ish) and might never happen have let this penetrate. I bet not. Unfortunately, Mueller is, approaching 2010, still just a suburban strip mall and a big suburban single-family subdivision, with a suburban apartment complex in between. No mix of uses, and nothing approaching urban. October 19, 2009 at 9:55 am
Hey M1ek, good to hear from you again- sorry it took so long to approve this comment - I was off riding trams in Nottingham with my family! It's true that we have shops, apartments and single family / row homes here at Mueller right now. There's also a fair few office buildings around the hospital, and the Austin Children's shelter recently opened. In terms of approaching urban - one might argue that housing is denser here than in typical suburbs. I'm curious to see what the next steps are in the coming months too. October 30, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Garreth, I go through Mueller often enough to know that's a highly, uh, optimistic view of current conditions. (Was just there for surgery on my daughter last week). It's still fundamentally suburban, and no more dense than the typical new suburban development on the fringe of Austin. (All those uses you mention are strictly separated - horizontally - not even close to one another, which is a cardinal sin of suburbanism). November 13, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Hey M1ek, I hope your daughter is doing well. My daughter was at Dell Childrens' Hospital last weekend and I thought the place was well appointed. Maybe I'm an optimist and seeing Mueller through "drank the koolaid"-rimmed glasses. I hadn't considered the separation of the office / commercial buildings - I was more thinking of the residential development and lot sizes. True, you wouldn't find yard homes in Central London, and there is currently a high proportion of single family detached homes here in the residential development. With the proposed Mueller Houses (multi-family disguised as a large single family home) maybe things will change. I know that the Mueller Houses have been "proposed" for a long time, so maybe I'm being optimistic when I say that I hope to see them in the next 6 months. If I get chance in the next few weeks, I'll review some suburban developments on the fringe of Austin and see what kind of density is apparent. Thanks as always for the different perspective! November 13, 2009 at 5:08 pm