Wanxiang America Real Estate

In what will be the first new apartments to open in downtown Austin in about two years, the developer of a 32-story tower rising at East Fifth and Brazos streets is eyeing a late summer move-in date for the initial residents of its mixed-use building.

The high-rise will have 331 apartments, with rents averaging $2,636 a month, the developer said in a news release.

The tower, called 5th and Brazos, is being developed by Magellan Development Group, partnering with BLG Capital Advisors, Geolo Capital and Wanxiang America Real Estate Group.

It’s one of multiple high-rises — office, apartment, condominium, hotel and mixed-use — that are under construction, newly completed or planned amid a downtown Austin building boom that hasn’t abated despite the pandemic.

The most recent apartment project to open downtown was Gables Republic Square, 215 multifamily units that opened in 2019 within the Hotel ZaZa at 401 Lavaca St.

Along with apartments, the 5th and Brazos tower will have two Hyatt-brand hotels, a 229-room Thompson Austin hotel with meeting space, restaurants and bars, and a 193-unit tommie hotel.  The Thompson is a luxury boutique concept and tommie — styled with a lower-case t — is billed as a “micro-lifestyle hotel.”

The apartments, called Sienna at the Thompson, will be on floors 15 through 31 of the building. The first and second floors will be retail space, and the garage will occupy four floors below ground, with 297 parking spaces for residents.

Tenants have signed leases for 56 of the Sienna’s apartments since a temporary leasing office opened a month ago at 501 Brazos.

“The luxury rental market in Austin is very strong, and we are seeing a continuing rise in demand for high-rise residential living,” Leslie Caffey, Sienna residential property manager, said in a written statement. “We are currently working with dozens of prospects daily. We expect demand to continue to increase in the coming weeks.”

The average rent and occupancy rates in downtown Austin declined in the first half of last year amid the coronavirus pandemic. But during the second half of 2020, downtown rents and occupancies started to trend back upward, Charles Heimsath, a real estate consultant, found in his year-end apartment survey of the Austin-area apartment market.

In December 2019, downtown apartment rents averaged $2,561 a month, and units were 92.2% occupied, on average, according to Heimsath, president of Austin-based Capitol Market Research, a real estate consulting firm.

Six months later, in June 2020, occupancy had dropped to 88.6% and rents had dropped by more than $200 a month, to $2,356 on average.

By the end of December, the downtown occupancy rate had bounced back up — to 93% — and rents ticked up slightly, averaging $2,374 a month.

“You’re already seeing a recovery in the downtown market between June and December,” Heimsath said earlier this year. “I didn’t expect that at all.”

At Sienna, rents for the smallest apartments — 496 square feet to 570 square feet — are expected to range from $2,019 to $2,324 a month.

• Projected rents for one-bedroom, one-bathroom units ( 509 square feet to 864 square feet) will range from $2,264 to $3,514;
• Rents for two-bedroom, one-bathroom units (just over 900 square feet) are expected to range from $3,770 to $3,993;
• Rents for two-bedroom, two-bathroom units (1,130 square feet to 1,285 square feet) are expected to range from $4,244 to $5,312.

Sienna at the Thompson is currently offering concessions, including one month of free rent for tenants who sign a 12-month lease.

In addition to high-end finishes and city views, the project will have keyless entry, in-home washers and dryers, and other amenities, including a fitness center, a 75-foot lap pool and an indoor dog run and dog spa.

The building also will have multiple indoor and outdoor bars, including The Diner Bar, as well as The Grey Market, led by partners Mashama Bailey and Johno Morisano of the James Beard-nominated The Grey, a Savannah, Ga.-based restaurant.

A year ago, Magellan’s website listed the total development cost of the 5th and Brazos project at $294.7 million. A company spokesperson said there was not an updated figure at this time. The spokesperson also did not have an estimate on when construction is expected to wrap up on the entire project.

Magellan has developed 27 projects, mostly mixed-use, valued at over $5 billon and totaling more than 9,000 residential units.

Founded in 1996, the family-owned company has projects in Chicago and other cities, which along with Austin include Minneapolis, Miami, Nashville, San Diego and Somerville, Mass.