BG Reads // May 15, 2025

Author

A.J. Bingham
May 15, 2025

Presented By

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️: Dr. Eric Anthony Johnson, Ph.D. has joined the City of Austin as an Assistant City Manager. In this role, he will oversee the following departments:

Prior to joining the City, Dr. Johnson served as President and CEO of Aeon, a nonprofit affordable housing developer based in Minneapolis. Aeon owns and manages nearly 6,000 affordable housing units. Under his leadership, the organization navigated post-pandemic challenges and moved toward long-term sustainability.

Dr. Johnson previously served as Chief of Economic and Neighborhood Revitalization for the City of Dallas where he provided oversight of housing, urban planning and design, permitting, historic preservation, and economic development.

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Washburn University, a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Tennessee and a Doctorate in Urban Affairs and Public Policy from the University of Delaware.

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[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ SXSW one step closer to state financial help amid Austin Convention Center closure (KVUE)

South by Southwest (SXSW) is one step closer to getting financial help from the state.

On Wednesday, the Texas House passed a bill to make the conference and festivals eligible for the state’s Major Events Reimbursement Program.

The fund reimburses local governments and event organizers for some costs of certain major events, including the Formula One Grand Prix at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas.

The program is designed to draw large, high-profile events, like the Super Bowl or Final Four, to Texas.

House Bill 4811, authored by State Rep. Sheryl Cole (D-Austin), would make SXSW eligible.

The event has always been held in Austin. However, a $1.6 billion renovation project will close the Austin Convention Center, a longtime hub for SXSW, until 2029.

During a public hearing on HB 4811 on April 15, Cole told lawmakers on the House Committee on Culture, Recreation & Tourism that construction will likely raise the cost of hosting the conference.

“Adding this event to the list of events eligible for the major events reimbursement funding program funding will support the event’s continuation and stimulate the state’s tourism economy,” said Cole… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ City eyes expanded district plan for downtown and beyond(Austin Monitor)

As city leaders prepare for a major overhaul of the Downtown Austin Plan, staff recommendations for the initiative could significantly expand the geographic area and project scope of the city’s long-range strategy for its urban core.

A May 9 memo from the Planning Department outlines a shift toward an expansive Center City/ Central District Plan that would incorporate the University Neighborhood Overlay area, much of the University of Texas campus, and the South Central Waterfront into a single planning framework for central Austin.

The revised boundaries propose expanding the area from 29th Street in the north to Bouldin Creek in the south, bordered by Lamar Boulevard to the west and I-35 to the east. Planning staff argue that high-density development and new infrastructure projects have already blurred the old lines that once defined downtown, making a more integrated planning approach necessary.

The new district-level plan would replace the 2011 Downtown Austin Plan as the city’s primary policy roadmap for downtown growth and development. In supporting documents, staff described the update as a response to more than a decade of rapid urbanization, major public investments, and shifting economic and cultural dynamics in the city center… 🟪 (READ MORE)

🟪 Austin airport begins construction on latest 12,000-square-foot expansion project (Community Impact)

City and airport officials celebrated the start of construction May 12 on the Atrium Infill Project that will result in an additional 12,000 square feet for the Arrivals and Departures Hall within the Barbara Jordan Terminal at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

The project is expected to increase capacity for Transportation Security Administration queuing and airline ticketing counter lines, which has in the past during busy travel days extended outside the terminal, according to a news release.

In recent years, the airport has seen record-setting passenger numbers, with some months reaching upward of 2 million travelers—among the busiest in its history… ✅ (READ MORE)

🟪 Plan for golden tower on West Sixth Street moves forward (Austin Business Journal)

Plans for another mixed-use residential tower downtown took a step forward this week. 

The Austin Planning Commission approved the proposed 66-story tower at 701 W. Sixth St. for inclusion in the city's downtown density bonus program on May 13, which would allow for the project to double its floor area ratio from 15:1 to 30:1. 

The project could have 413 residential units and retail space, according to city documents. It's in a capitol view corridor, however, which limits how tall certain parts of it could go regardless of the density bonus program.

Property owner Kairoi Residential, a San Antonio-based developer, also is involved in building the tallest tower in Texas, called Waterline, at 98 Red River St. It recently finished what shortly was the tallest tower in Austin, Sixth and Guadalupe.

The location of Kairoi's planned Sixth Street project currently has low-rise commercial buildings on it and formerly housed the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Icehouse. According to its website, that business is now located in East Austin along Seventh Street and is called Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Sporting Club… ✅ (READ MORE)

✅ Another surf lake project appears to be moving forward (Austin Businss Journal)

More than two years after a company announced plans to build what they called the "biggest surf park development on the planet" in Austin, the project appears to be moving forward — and it's doing so about 15 miles south of a separate similarly sized private surf club neighborhood that's drawing big names like Matthew McConaughey.

Many details are unclear about the billion-dollar Pura Vida development in Mustang Ridge, a small city of about 1,000 people located 20 miles southeast of Austin. But, based on public documents, it is known that the developer, Austin-based SonWest Co., has scooped up more than 200 acres over the last few years and is in the process of securing support from state and local entities.

The Texas Senate on May 13 approved legislation to establish the Pura Vida Municipal Management District No. 1, while a companion bill is making its way through the House. In February, the Mustang Ridge City Council unanimously approved a resolution supporting the endeavor, noting that it would contain "retail, commercial, hotel, civic center and residential aspects, with indoor and outdoor entertainment uses."

Mustang Ridge LLC is the owner of the property and Shawn Breedlove is named as the manager in the city's resolution and other previous public records. He is president of SonWest Co., which also developed the huge Sonterra master-planned community in Jarrell that's among the region's fastest-growing neighborhoods… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS NEWS]

✅ The fastest-growing city in the U.S. is in Texas, and it’s not the one you’re thinking of (Texas Tribune)

At the start of the decade, fewer than 18,000 people called Princeton, a mostly rural town about an hour northeast of Dallas, home.

But as hundreds of thousands of people flocked to the Dallas-Fort Worth region in the years since, Princeton’s population more than doubled. Just over 37,000 people lived in Princeton as of July 1, 2024, estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau show.

Last year, it grew by 30 percent alone, making it the fastest-growing city or town in the country.

Though Texas’ population growth has slowed, many parts of the state are still booming, and setting the pace for the rest of the U.S.

Of the 15 fastest growing cities and towns in the country, seven are in Texas — Princeton, Fulshear, Celina, Anna, Fate, Melissa and Hutto… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Business tax breaks closer to reality after Texas Senate approves compromise (Texas Tribune)

The Texas Senate advanced a bill Wednesday to give business owners bigger breaks on their property taxes — a key piece of a deal brokered on how to lower Texans’ property taxes.

House Bill 9 by state Rep. Morgan Meyer, R-University Park, would exempt up to $125,000 of businesses’ inventory from taxation by any taxing entity, including school districts, cities and counties. Texas is one of only a few states that taxes business inventory, often also called business personal property. That property is currently exempt from taxation if it’s worth $2,500 or less.

The Senate approved the bill unanimously. The Texas House approved the bill in April, but must approve changes made in the Senate before it heads to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.

The bill, a top priority of House Speaker Dustin Burrows, is part of a tentative agreement between House and Senate leaders on a property tax-cut package that also includes breaks for homeowners. A pair of Senate proposals would boost the state’s homestead exemption, which lowers the amount of a home’s value that can be taxed to pay for public schools, from $100,000 to $140,000 — and exempt even more of a home’s value for homeowners who are older Texans or those with disabilities… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[US and World News]

✅ Pregnant immigrants warily eye US Supreme Court birthright citizenship case (Reuters)

An executive order issued by President Donald Trump in January that would limit automatic U.S. birthright citizenship - part of his wide-ranging immigration crackdown - would deny citizenship to their expected child, if it goes into effect.

Three federal judges issued nationwide injunctions blocking the policy, finding that it likely violated citizenship language in the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, in challenges brought by Democratic attorneys general from 22 states as well as various individual pregnant immigrants and advocacy groups.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday is set to hear arguments in the Trump administration's request that the justices allow broad enforcement of the directive by narrowing the scope of the injunctions.

Trump signed the order on his first day back in the White House, directing federal agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of U.S.-born children who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ A once-fringe theory on birthright citizenship comes to the Supreme Court (NPR)

The Supreme Court hears historic arguments on Thursday, as the Trump administration seeks to challenge the constitutnional provision that guarantees automatic citizenship to all babies born in the United States. And yet, the arguments are likely to focus primarily on a different question entirely, a legal question on nationwide injunctions that could make it much more difficult and time-consuming to bring challenges to all of Trump's legal policies, not just this one.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, enacted after the Civil War, was aimed at reversing the Supreme Court's infamous Dred Scott decision, a ruling that declared Black people, enslaved or free, could not be citizens of the United States.

The Amendment says: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."

Challenges to birthright citizenship have long been considered a fringe legal theory. That's because 127 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled to the contrary by a unanimous vote. Moreover, as if to put icing on the cake, Congress in 1940 passed a statute codifying birthright citizenship for any child born in the U.S.

President Trump, however, has long maintained that the Constitution does not guarantee birthright citizenship. So, on Day One of his second presidential term, he issued an executive order barring automatic citizenship for any baby born in the U.S. whose parents entered the country illegally, or who were here legally but on a temporary visa… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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