Owner/Client
Cielo Property Group
Location
Austin, TX
CEC Services
- City of Austin “Fast Track” Permitting
- Austin Water System Water, Reuse Water, and Wastewater Improvements
- Roadway Extension and Resurfacing
- Coordination with Large Team of Consultants and City of Austin Staff
- Address Downtown Traffic Concerns
- Sustainable Principles in Design
- Participation in Project Meetings
- Shoal Creek Setbacks
- “Great Streets” Program Amenities
- Boundary, Tree, Topographic, and Title Survey
- Preliminary Engineering and Due Diligence
- Service Extension Request (SER) Preparation and Processing
- License Agreement and Unified Development Agreement (UDA) Processing and Approval
- Pre-construction and Construction Phase Services
Certification
LEED Platinum
Owner Objective
The property is adjacent to West 3rd Street and Nueces Street, which are categorized as Great Streets by the City of Austin, and located within the City of Austin’s full-purpose jurisdiction in the Central Business District (CDB) zoning district. The project consisted of demolition of an existing building and construction of a 30-story, 584,000-gross-squarefoot mixed-use building for office uses and ground-floor retail with associated on-site parking, drives, water quality and detention, right-of-way (ROW) improvements, and utilities. Cielo Property Group desired to maximize the floor-to-area ratio (FAR) for a site heavily encumbered with setback restrictions, particularly from Shoal Creek.
CEC Approach
CEC provided surveying and civil engineering services for the project. The combination of services allowed the team to provide professional consulting in a much more cohesive manner. CEC’s expert knowledge of city code and surveying practices ultimately produced a setback from Shoal Creek that had much less of an effect on the development than what was anticipated; and therefore, the client’s FAR goals were realized.
The civil engineering design also included sustainable design elements such as partial sedimentation filtration in an underground vault and utilizing reclaimed water for irrigation purposes. These elements helped the project obtain a Platinum LEED® certification.
CEC promoted the use of the City of Austin “Fast Track” permit process wherein each of the two project phases held a separate site development permit. The first phase consisted of a demolition of the existing building, excavation, and erosion and sedimentation controls. The second phase consisted of all other site plan-related items, including vertical construction, utility work, sidewalks, and streetscape improvements. CEC processed both permits and thus allowed the project to start construction earlier than what is normally anticipated.
In addition, CEC managed service extension requests (SER) through Austin Water, adding 314 linear feet of 8-inch water line, 5 linear feet of 8-inch wastewater line, and ~700 linear feet of reclaimed water line to the City’s distribution systems. CEC permitted streetscape amenities within the right-of-way and processed a license agreement for these amenities for Cielo Property Group.
When complete, Facebook leased the property, and the site is now known as Facebook Tower.
