It’s called LoCo, and it’s getting a redo
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Sunday, February 24, 2008
From the Austin American Statesman 2/24/08
In late 2006, Mitchell took a drive around Austin to scout out potential real-estate investments. Their first stop was the South Congress Avenue, or SoCo, area, and they were floored by the high prices.
“What does the surrounding area look like?” Mitchell, who lives in Houston, remembers asking his son.
The quest led them south of Ben White Boulevard to the Lower Congress area, increasingly known as LoCo. A stone’s throw from South First Street, the Testas located property in what they believe to be the next explosive neighborhood in South Austin. It was a development opportunity they could not pass up.
“I’m convinced this is the greatest area,” Mitchell, a designer and builder, said.
Mitchell bought a boarded-up house on a quarter-acre lot on Clover Court, a cul-de-sac accessible only from South First Street. They replaced the original structure with a custom-built, single-family bungalow.
The house on Clover Court is a smartly designed, 1,700-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bathroom home with 9- and 12-foot-high ceilings. At twice the square footage of the surrounding houses and a modern look of stucco, rough cedar and HardiPlank, it manages to add sophistication to the street but not dwarf the adjacent homes built in 1958.
The asking price is $375,000.
Mitchell worked with local architect Micah Land to create a contemporary house with clean lines and upscale features. And the attention to detail is impressive, both from aesthetic and utilitarian perspectives.
“Every square inch is maximized,” Brandon says, of i[RED] Design & Build. This is apparent from the pot-filler faucet over the stove to the space-saving pocket doors in the master bedroom.
“We want to draw the people in the SoCo area, so we went top-of-the-line all the way,” Mitchell says.
The living room is designed with an open dormer over the ceiling that illuminates at night. Both bathrooms are tiled in glass mosaic, and the master bath has dual shower heads. The house are hardwired to deliver HDTV, surround sound and all forms of Internet access. Recessed speakers are included in the living room, master suite and under the roof eave facing a backyard with pecan and cinnamon trees. The house also features art niches, bamboo flooring and lush carpet. The kitchen cabinetry and built-in wine rack are custom-made from maple. The walk-in closet in the master suite has locking drawers for jewelry. The attic is easily accessible, with finished floors to accommodate storage.
Selling LoCo
They aren’t just marketing the Clover Court residence. They’re also selling the concept of LoCo as an alternative to the trendy South Congress neighborhoods closer to downtown.
“I love the lot, and I love the area,” says Mitchell who is looking for more properties to buy and develop nearby. “This is an area that hasn’t been tapped yet, and it’s better to be a leader than a follower in development.”
Discussing the difference in housing prices north and south of Ben White Boulevard, Mitchell says that a comparable custom-built home costs about a quarter of a million dollars more a couple miles north. He is banking on attracting home buyers who won’t mind driving six minutes to get to First Thursday if it means saving $250,000 on the price of a sleek, contemporary house.
LoCo is still in its infancy as a label and is mostly undefined. In the real-estate world, LoCo can be anywhere from Interstate 35 west to Manchaca Road and from Ben White Boulevard south to Stassney Lane. This includes the neighborhoods of Battle Bend and Southwood.
As with any new nickname, time will be the arbiter of its acceptance and boundaries. But whether the dozen subdivisions just south of Ben White Boulevard are lumped together by a common name or not, they share certain traits by virtue of location that real estate developers and agents are getting excited about.
The area’s proximity to downtown might be obscured in home buyers’ minds by the presence of Ben White Boulevard, but the distance from Stassney Lane to Lady Bird Lake is only four miles. It is also a great location to reach main thoroughfares without getting bogged down on side streets. MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1), U.S. 290, Texas 71, Capital of Texas Highway (Loop 360) and Interstate 35 are all easily accessible. It is home to a medical complex around South Austin Hospital and to Austin Community College’s South Austin Campus. Construction is scheduled to begin later this year on Capital Metro’s South Central Transit Center there.
LoCo also has an Austin cache of its own. Hill’s Café began operating out of 4700 S. Congress Ave. more than 60 years ago and offers live music five nights a week. Casa Maria on South First Street features mariachis, and South Austin’s folk-art masterpiece, the Cathedral of Junk, resides in LoCo.
Modern in an older area
The Testas aren’t the only proponents of LoCo as a more affordable alternative to SoCo chic. Owner and real estate agent Yvonne, recently put an extensively renovated three-bedroom, 21/2-bathroom house on the market on Creekline Drive for $249,000. The house is in a quiet neighborhood between South Congress Avenue and South First Street. Yvonne says that the location is “minutes away from the cool stuff, yet you can have the suburban amenities of a garage and a yard and a neighborhood where you can walk your dog.
“A lot of people have a hard time going to the other side of Ben White, but it is such a better value for your product,” Yvonne says. “You have the best of both worlds: a modernized, updated house that is close in to the city.”
She planned the renovation to appeal to buyers in their 20s and 30s who are shopping for a modern home but want the benefits of an established residential neighborhood,.
Without changing the footprint or original exterior look of the house, she opened up the floor plan, finished out a half-bathroom upstairs and added a half-bath downstairs. She updated the two-story home with contemporary and environmentally friendly features: extra insulation, a new high-efficiency air-conditioning system, bamboo floors and stainless-steel appliances. By extending the rear roofline, she created a covered outdoor living space in a newly landscaped backyard.
“I see my competition as new construction,” she says,— specifically, condominiums. Bel Air condominiums recently sprouted up in the 4800 block of South Congress Avenue, and a condo development is under construction between single-family homes on Hank Avenue in the Southwood neighborhood.
The subdivisions of LoCo are full of cul-de-sacs and winding roads, partly because of creek beds and a railroad line. The absence of a grid system along the residential streets discourages through traffic and succeeds at keeping the neighborhoods calm and cordial even though they are nestled among the commercial zones of South Congress Avenue, South First Street and Manchaca Road.
Whatever the area ends up being called, it offers established neighborhoods close to downtown, and homes at prices that are still within reach for many buyers.
Click Here To Search Homes For Sale in LoCo
For more information on finding your perfect dream home here in the greater Austin area, please contact:
Kevin Wilhelm, GRI – Realtor
Coldwell Banker United, Realtors
512-417-3915
