A sprawling mixed-use development in Southeast Austin is budding out of the dirt years after it was first announced.
Velocity, a 314-acre master-planned district entitled for seven million square feet of space and situated east of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, began vertical framing for the ambitious development’s first phase in mid-March. The first piece to rise will be an “urban-style” apartment community, according to a March 21 announcement from Dallas-based Velocity developer Presidium Group LLC.
Once complete, Velocity will add thousands of homes, retail space, hotels and about 100 acres of green space to Southeast Austin.
Plans for the site have been about a decade in the making. Velocity won approval for its preliminary site plan in Oct. 2022. At the time, Mark Bulmash, Presidium’s then-president of mixed-use and master plan development, told ABJ, "There's still quite a bit of work ahead of us.” A Presidium spokesperson confirmed recently that work has involved horizontal infrastructure and road work required prior to vertical construction.
The initial project at Velocity is a 307-unit apartment complex, according to the announcement. The studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments will range from 375 to 1,400 square feet.
As an “urban-style” apartment community, the project will be four stories and have climate-controlled corridors with elevators, as opposed to open-air corridors with stairs.
Presidium hopes to complete the project by mid-2025. Provident General Contractors is the project’s general contractor, while the architect is O’Brien Architects. Other project team members include Kimley-Horn and Associates, Salas O’Brien, United Structural Consultants, Hitchcock Design Group and Dwell Design Studio.
More details on Velocity
Velocity is located along a high-traffic area where state highways 71 and 130 meet east of the airport, and it has drawn comparison to other high-density, mixed-use developments in the region such as The Domain and Mueller.
Once complete, Velocity’s seven million square feet could be divided amongst almost 2,700 apartments, 2.9 million square feet of office space, 585,000 square feet of flex industrial and creative office space and 310,000 square feet for commercial uses, including retail, restaurants, movie theater and three hotels, according to plans released in 2020, when Presidium came on board to the project.
The 2.9 million square feet of office would provide enough room for two large corporate campuses plus traditional office space.
Development in Velocity in the near future includes a second multifamily complex, retail and restaurant properties, all of which are in the design phase.
Velocity through the years
Austin Business Journal first wrote about the land that would become Velocity in 2015.
Since then, the land and the development have seen plenty of change. Originally, the project was the 390-acre brainchild of Austin-based Marketplace Real Estate Group. But, land sales in 2016 and 2018 to local grocery giant H-E-B and a cosmetics manufacturing company reduced the size of the development to 314 acres.
Presidium came on board as a Velocity development partner in 2020. Originally, plans called for Presidium and Marketplace to co-develop a 300-unit apartment complex within Velocity, which was expected to begin construction in 2021.
Then, in summer 2022, Presidium made the move to buy out Marketplace’s stake in the project.
"We are very happy and we wish those guys the best going forward," Doug Launius, Marketplace managing principal, said at the time. "We are still very active in Southeast Austin and very bullish."