Dec 31, 2008
Residents Around Urban Grocer
By: Kevin Buchanan
In the comments on yesterday’s post, Urbndwlr wrote the following:
It would be interesting to know how many residential units and how many office employees are within 1/4 mile of the Royal Blue grocery. I have heard proponents of a downtown bodega/grocery in Fort Worth say that the residential critical mass isn’t sufficient, however I’m quite certain that Austin’s downtown does not have any pockets of residential density that exceeds that of Throckmorton between 3rd and 4th in Fort Worth. (about 420 units) plus an extremely dense daytime office population within 3-4 blocks. That is exciting to read that Royal Blue is a success story so far. I would love to understand why that has worked in spite of conventional wisdom.
The Royal Blue in the 2nd Street District is in the ground floor of an AMLI development that has 220 apartments, and down the street is AMLI’s other 2nd Street development, AMLI on 2nd, with 231 units. There are two small office buildings (around 8 stories) in the district and Austin City Hall. The second Royal Blue going in at the 360 Condos tower will be on the ground floor of 430 residences. Apart from those developments, there are some other things several blocks away and some new stuff under construction that aren’t occupied yet.
Clearly, there is something about that approx. 450 residents in close proximity that enables Royal Blue to work, and as more infill is built they’ll be in even better shape. Between The Tower, Sundance West, and Sanger Lofts, there are around 430 units, and more within a pretty easy walk (and an even easier future streetcar ride), like the Kress Lofts, Houston Place Lofts, the Flatiron Building, the Electric Building, the Neil P., the Omni, etc. And of course, there are no shortage of office buildings near that residential concentration like the Chase Building and the Carnegie plus the other offices a few blocks away.
http://downtownaustin.wordpress.com/2008/11/14/downtown-austin-by-the-numbers-how-many-dwellings/
Hey Kevin, please don’t forget all of us too! Just because there is high end condos mentioned all the time doesn’t mean our petty apartments shouldn’t be known. We are high end as well but aren’t as extreme in price. The Depot has 210 units, Trinity Bluffs over 300, the Amli’s total about 300 plus, and Firestone is over 300 units as well, etc. Yes, we all need a nice grocery market downtown. We all talk together about it and are all friends. Any word on the Bass talk of Pecan/Weatherford/Grove/1st St. plot? We are starving here! Have a wonderful New Year!
Jake Werner
The Depot Lofts
Downtown Fort Worth
http://www.thedepotapts.com
Hey Kevin………..HILLSIDE APARTMENTS has 172 apartments full of starving resident’s too!!!
Janna Rivera
Hillside and the Depot are of course very welcomed, as well. The point here was mainly to take a look and see if there’s a similar concentration of residents as around the Royal Blue in Austin in Downtown Fort Worth, which there is.
Somewhat related, here is a site that “scores” areas based on their walkability, based on such characteristics such as the proximity to grocery stores, etc: http://www.walkscore.com/
In our downtown, it appears that the ideal block for a bodega/small urban grocer would be 5th and Throckmorton. There is a vacant surface parking lot there which is I think owned by Sundance Square. I don’t know what the Sundance Square master plan shows on that lot in the future. The Tower, across Throckmorton to the west, would be the best location in an existing building.
Within a 5 block walking radius of that block there is roughly 6.5 million square feet of office space, which translates to around 15,000 office workers. That radius of 5 blocks reaches at its edges Carter Burgess Plaza, City Center, and Burnett Plaza. It also would include the Electric Building and Neil P. Anderson Building for a total of about 600 residential units or about 1000 residents. This doesn’t take into account the people who work in downtown retail/restaurants and visitors.
Notice the Royal Blue is open late, so it presumably captures night time restaurant and bar patrons, which could be the difference maker that ensures the success of a small urban grocer.
It would be interesting to see the demographics of the residents of Austin’s 2nd Street district (AMLI Lofts) vs. those in Sundance proper (Tower, Sundance West, Sanger Lofts.) I might expect to see that the demographics of the 2nd streeters are “more likely” to shop at a place like the Royal Blue. Do residents in Sundance West even cook for themselves? Maybe this is why the core of downtown Fort Worth has yet to find any urban grocers. As an aside, I recall hearing about a developer’s idea for a Whole Foods as the part of the Tandy Center Redevelopment, but they couldn’t find a way to “park it,” meaning they were still expecting people to drive there rather than walk. Austin simply is more forward-looking and urban-minded. Fort Worth has a ways to go.