The third time was not the charm.
After two attempts to construct a new Downtown museum collapsed in economic turmoil, first in the mid-Eighties, then in the late Nineties, the Austin Museum of Art seemed finally to have hit on a scheme for success last year. In February 2008, it announced a partnership with Houston-based developer Hines Interests LP, which would acquire from AMOA the western half of the block at Guadalupe and Fourth for a 30-story office building called Museum Tower, thus helping the museum fund a new 40,000- square-foot, three-story facility on the eastern half. Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects was set to design both buildings.
But just as revelers were heading Downtown to ring in the new year (some no doubt parking on the very site of the proposed museum), AMOA was discreetly releasing the news that Hines would be letting its option on the land lapse at the end of the day with no immediate plans to renew it. While a statement from Hines took pains to emphasize the firm’s interest in “developing an office building in Austin when the market recovers,” with the hope that “it will be in conjunction with AMOA and its museum,” it made clear that the developer wouldn’t be jumping into any new deals until the economy was back in the pink.
As AMOA was relying on the sale of the land to cover a substantial percentage of the $23 million cost of the facility (perhaps as much as 40%), the withdrawal by Hines leaves the museum’s Downtown dreams dangling for the foreseeable future. AMOA could seek out a new partner to develop the site, or it could sit out the new economic crisis in the hopes that Hines will eventually pick up its option again, but either course of action adds months, if not years, to the timeline for the new museum, which was scheduled to break ground in 2009 and to be completed in 2011.
If there’s a silver lining in this sad situation (and you can bet the folks at AMOA would love to find one), it’s that this blow to the museum’s plans wasn’t a knockout punch, sidelining development of the new facility for a decade or more, as previously. The staff and support that made this recent plan seem so strong are still in place and in a good position to rebound from this setback. Here’s hoping that happens sooner rather than later.
This article appears in January 9 • 2009.