City real estate manager Lauraine Rizer said this week she’s still waiting for a formal response from Home Depot to the city’s offer for the company’s property and buildings at I-35 and St. Johns; the plan is to recondition the building and grounds to accommodate a new, $23 million municipal courthouse and Austin Police Department northeast substation. “We’re still in negotiations,” said Rizer; she hopes for an initial response from the company in the next few days. Home Depot might be entertaining other commercial offers on the tract; said Rizer, “There have always been other parties interested in that site.” The city is not in a hurry on the transaction, Rizer said, and would have to proceed with due diligence on the property – including a fresh appraisal and mechanical and engineering review – before any purchase could be completed.
Some advocacy groups – notably Austin League of United Latin American Citizens, Mothers Against Discriminatory Racism in Education and Society, and the American Civil Liberties Union – have objected to the proposed move, saying it has not been subject to sufficient public discussion and that the location is too far from Downtown. City demographer Ryan Robinson points out that the population center of the city is in fact “right on top of Northcross Mall” (Burnet Road and Anderson) and that the center of the metropolitan area (a less precise point) is “somewhere north and east of that and is being tugged further east by new growth.” Robinson said he was among those consulted on potential court locations and that the city considers not only a literal central point, but the “psychological” distance from Downtown. “But the bottom line,” Robinson said, “is that the proposed location is right in the middle of the urban area.”
Allen Weeks, president of the St. Johns Neighborhood Association, said some neighbors have questioned why the neighborhood was not consulted on the proposal but that in general the response has been “pretty positive.” Weeks said the Home Depot tract appears to be a good site for the court and police substation and that “people are hoping that a greater police presence and visibility in the neighborhood will mean less crime.” A few, he said, are also glad it will likely mean the end of the informal Home Depot day-labor site. Asked if the neighborhood plan addresses the tract, Weeks said the St. Johns planning process is only a few months old, “so the city picked a good moment to do what it wants to do.” Weeks added that while his neighbors appear willing to welcome the courthouse, “In general the city really needs to respect process more than they do.”
This article appears in November 2 • 2007.
