Iron Claw said:
Have a friend that owned an office (converted from a house) on W 6th Street, just right before Mopac. He ended up moving because of the city restrictions. Before he sold it and moved his office to the burbs, he had to put in a water reclamation system to catch and store rainwater. Seems like he spent close to 100k getting it done in order to meet all the city specs.
That's the kind of crazy Austin is.
Go downtown. All you see are new vegan restaurants, farm-to-table restaurants with stuff on the menu that you don't know what it is. Gone are the days of greasy burgers, slow smoked barbecue downtown. It is turning into Seattle, in a way. It had been over 5 years since I had been downtown and I was amazed (in a disappointed way) at the transformation.
The rainwater collection system seems fantastically high, but I do agree the CoA has a number of onerous requirements, especially relating to permitting. I could create an entire thread for the inefficiencies in the commercial permitting department.
As for downtown, I'm not certain what you're aiming at but if your position is the downtown food scene is not to your liking I don't know what to tell you? You lament the lack of bbq but no other downtown in the State of Texas has FOUR Texas Monthly Best BBQ places in Texas, including arguably the best bbq in the world at Aaron's place. Perhaps you're more of a chain guy like Bill Miller or Dicky's guy? That's okay I suppose, but you'll find that opinion to be the minority in the food world.
As for some of those farm-to-table restaurants, well, some of them are among the highest grossing restaurants in Central Texas. And as both a customer and an indirect investor in a few...I couldn't be more happy.
And judging by the several week waits some of them include to get a table, maybe things are going better than you let on.
