Aug 06 2008

Street Remains Closed, Construction Halted

Tag: Austin, New Development, News — Jcline @ 12:46 am

For more than a year West 17th Street at Lavaca Street has been closed. There’s been construction, which residents have accepted and adapted to. After all, there is nearly always construction in some part of Austin. You can’t avoid it; you can only accept it, even when it does inconvenience several thousand state employees.

Besides, this construction, when it started, was expected to lead to luxury condos and an office building, to be called La Vista on Lavaca. The permit was taken out for it in April 2007. At that time, Jason Redfern, manager of the Right of Way Management Division in Austin’s Watershed Protection and Development Review Department, said, the developers planned to keep the street closed for six months. When six months came and went, they renewed the permit for another six.

April 2008 should have seen another renewal or the completion of the project. It saw neither, and in fact, didn’t even see construction. No one has been there for months and the permits are expired. The city is now probing into the whys and whats of the situation, hoping for a clear answer in this mysterious halt.

The developers claim that their permits are up to date, and that the city is mistaken. But their claims do nothing for the fact that the street is still closed for no apparent reason.

If nothing is going to be done, citizens want it open; so does the city. There should not be, they say, inconvenience for no reason. There should only be inconvenience with the promise of future convenience. And that has disappeared from West 17th and Lavaca.

Aug 01 2008

Retail Sales Gain in Texas Cities Despite National Slowdown

Tag: Austin Texas Economy, Uncategorized, texas — Jcline @ 2:25 pm

Consumers remain cautious about spending their hard earned money in this shaky economic climate, but retail sales show a small gain in spite of it. This shows positive growth for the area.

The Texas Comptroller’s office reports sales tax receipts in the Austin area were $11.5 million in July 2008, a small increase – about .7 percent – over last year. For comparison, Houston’s sales tax revenue was up 7.3 percent, San Antonio’s was up 4.7, and Dallas was up 2.9 over last year at this time. For the first seven months of 2008, Austin pulled in $85 million in sales tax revenue, showing an increase of just over one percent, 1.4 percent to be precise, over the first seven months of 2007.

Statewide, the comptroller collected nearly $2 billion in sales tax receipts in June of 2008, an increase of 8.4 percent over 2007. The comptroller allocated nearly $312 million statewide in July sales tax allocations, an increase of 2.6 percent over 2007.

The top Texas sales tax rate increases by city show Arlington in first place with an increase of 13.54 percent, Beaumont next with 9.41 percent, followed by Tyler with an increase of 9.18 percent. Then comes Midland at 8.62 percent, Fort Worth with an increase of 8.36 percent, followed by Houston at 7.33 percent. Austin brings up the rear with a modest increase of .68 percent over 2007 rates.

In an article in the Statesman, Comptroller Susan Combs sums it up thusly: “Through June 2008, fiscal year-to-date state sales tax collections have increase 6.1 percent compared to fiscal 2007. While we have seen the national economy slowing, growth in Texas sales tax revenue continues at a steady pace.”

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