BG Reads Weekend Edition(6.8.2025)

Author

A.J. Bingham
June 08, 2025

PRESENTED BY

[TOP CLICKS OF THE WEEK]

🚨 KEEP READING 🚨

The Week Ahead at Austin City Hall and Weekend News below

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

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[WEEKEND NEWS]

🟪 ATP opens bidding for $4B Austin light rail project (Community Impact)

The agency tasked with building the Austin's voter-approved light rail system—Austin Transit Partnership—has officially launched the official solicitation process for a design and construction contract worth over $4 billion.

ATP expects to award the final design and construction contract by early 2026, with crews breaking ground in 2027, according to a news release.

The agency will use a two-step procurement process to vet interested applicants.

Contractors will initially submit a request for qualifications, which will remain open until July 3. Once the firms are deemed qualified for the project, they will submit requests for proposals in August, by which the ATP team will evaluate the firms’ experience, approach and total cost proposals.

The contract will follow ATP’s approach of teaming up with private companies to bring in “top talent” and deliver a “world-class light rail system for Austin,” ATP CEO Greg Canally said in a statement.

The Austin light rail is expected to create and support hundreds of thousands of jobs both locally and across the state… ✅ (READ MORE)

🟪 Austin affordable housing program to be revised amid stream of redevelopments, criticism (Community Impact)

An Austin development program that's been both widely used and criticized since its creation last year will be revised and potentially expanded, after city officials acknowledged unintended effects tied to new construction under the policy.

"If we want a functional system ... for gaining affordable housing, we need more options, more tools. I believe that will get us more housing and more affordable housing," Mayor Kirk Watson said of the update. "I also believe it will avoid some of the unhappiness that comes from using a tool that might work great in some spots but might not be working as well as it could in some other places."

Austin maintains several bonus programs that can see the city trade enhanced building allowances to developers in exchange for various public improvements and benefits. Bonus programs are used around town to develop prominent downtown towers, mixed-use projects near transit stations, student housing around The University of Texas at Austin, and new housing in neighborhoods.

City leaders previously expanded one such program to allow taller buildings with income-restricted housing in busy parts of town. However, a resident lawsuit eventually caused it to be voided in court… ✅ (READ MORE)

🟪 Plan for 3 new towers near downtown Austin approved (Austin Business Journal)

More high-rises have been cleared to rise near downtown.

The Austin City Council approved a planned unit development for a roughly four-acre property at 200 E. Riverside Drive at its June 5 meeting. El Paso-based Hunt Companies wants to build three high-rise buildings there with about 1.3 million square feet of office space, almost 900 residential units, just under 32,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial and retail space and a 513-room hotel. 

It's unclear exactly how tall the proposed towers will be, but city documents state the site is being divided into one area with a maximum height of 600 feet, on the western edge, and another with a maximum height of 500 feet, on the eastern edge.

The site is currently occupied by a 93,000-square-foot, vacant office building that was built in 1970.

The PUD proposal has changed several times in recent months. It originally intended to be primarily an office project but then plans shifted to be a residential development. Current plans call for a blend of office, residential and hotel uses. There are also plans to integrate a part of the site with the future light rail route that's being developed by the Austin Transit Partnership… ✅ (READ MORE)

🟪 Air Force veteran Gina Ortiz Jones wins runoff race for San Antonio mayor (Texas Tribune)

San Antonio’s next mayor will be Gina Ortiz Jones, a 44-year-old West Side native who rose from John Jay High School to the top ranks of the U.S. military on an ROTC scholarship.

Jones defeated Rolando Pablos, a close ally of Texas GOP leaders, with 54% of the vote on Saturday night in a high-profile, bitterly partisan runoff.

Thanks to new, longer terms that voters approved in November, this year’s mayor and City Council winners will be the first to serve four-year terms before they must seek reelection.

The closely watched runoff came after Jones took a commanding 10-percentage-point lead in last month’s 27-candidate mayoral election, but weathered nearly $1 million in attacks from Pablos and his Republican allies… ✅ (READ MORE)