BG Note | News - What We're Reading (September 22, 2017)
[AUSTIN METRO]
AISD LAND FOR SALE: Alamo Drafthouse eyes former school site for HQ (Austin American-Statesman) LINK TO STORY
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is seeking to move its headquarters to the Baker Center, one of 40 bids and proposals for 10 of the Austin school district’s surplus properties that remain in negotiations.
Baker, a former school built in 1911, had a minimum bid of $10.6 million. Alamo was among the six bidders, and one of three (including the city) that made separate proposals for the property, but Alamo’s plan to transform it into a community cultural center, art galleries, commissary kitchen space and affordable housing for district employees and families appears to be the favorite among Hyde Park neighbors.
Austin’s creative culture holds weight in economic incentives revision (Austin Monitor) LINK TO STORY
In response to City Council direction in March, Austin’s Economic Development Department has spent the better part of the year meeting with specific groups in the community that have a stake in how the city approaches policies such as business recruitment, real estate planning and business incentives packages in the coming years.
In an effort to gather feedback and recommendations to retool the city’s Chapter 380 incentive agreements, David Colligan, the city’s manager of global business expansion, presented the initial findings from community engagement meetings to the Arts Commission on Sept. 18. The goal was to understand if the suggested community values were aligned with the revision recommendations that the Arts Commission sees as crucial to maintaining Austin culture in the face of continued economic growth and immigration.
Longtime Austin activists team up to petition for a public vote on CodeNEXT (Austin Monitor) LINK TO STORY
On the eve of the release of the second draft of CodeNEXT, longtime Austin activists Fred Lewis and Linda Curtis threw the city a curveball related to the Land Development Code rewrite: a petition that, if successful, would put the final version of CodeNEXT to a public vote.
Curtis, who now lives in Bastrop, led the petition campaign to implement Austin’s current 10-1 City Council system in 2012. Now, she’s hoping to force the city to put CodeNEXT to a public vote. Curtis pulled up to City Hall on Thursday, Sept. 14, with a camper full of equipment to hold a press conference announcing the new petition. She gathered a small group of supporters around her on the building’s east side while her assistant set up a PA system. Julie Nitsch, who is serving as communications director for the group, spoke first, introducing it as IndyAustin. Curtis filed a specific-purpose political action committee under that name with the city on Sept. 8.
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