Featherlite tract surveyed but stagnant

My house in Austin backs up to the Featherlite tract that was purchased by former Dell Chief Financial Officer Tom Meredith. Meredith actually visited with neighbors one evening at our home last spring, and has been generous so far about accomodating reasonable community concerns. We've really appreciated that, all in all. Most significantly, he decreased the amount of impervious cover after concerns were raised about the effects of the development on neighborhood drainage (the property lies next to a creek at the bottom of a large hill).

Last we heard, the commercial section of the development is completely on hold. Originally Meredith and his entourage hoped that the Austin Children's Museum and KLRU (Austin's local public television station) would become anchor tenants for the commercial complex, and serve as a draw for other supporting commercial businesses like restaurants or small shops. Meredith offered to donate the land to those two entities, both of which obviously are non-profit organizations, but they would have had to build on it with their own funds. Both entities wound up passing, so now the commerical portion of the development is in limbo.

Meredith plans to move forward with a small development of condominiums, with its own binding homeowners' association contracts, that will go in betwen 14th and 16th streets, from the existing houses all the way flush up to Boggy Creek. Fourteenth St. would be extended, and 16th would be extended past Miriam St. to the East; 14th and 16th would be connected by a new road running along the edge of the railroad tracks. I always thought some of that was flood plain, certainly some of it floods sometimes, but the city maps insist the formal, legal flood plain only exists on the other side of the creek. We'll see, I suppose, once it's built out.

Survey stakes went up a few months ago, and the grass was mowed, making us think something might be happening soon. But most of the stakes have fallen down now, the grass is knee high, and there hasn't been much action beyond some neighborhood dog walking and kids racing up and down the odd concrete strips that dot the tracts' landscape. It's zoned, platted and ready to go, though, so once Meredith decides to move forward it could happen quickly.