Texas Agency Eyes $423M Austin Campus

The Texas Division of Emergency Management has plans for a $423 million headquarters and emergency operations center in Austin, Texas, the Austin Business Journal reported.

The TDEM is overseen by the Texas A&M University System, whose Board of Regents first approved the project, with a $360 million budget, last November. In February, the board approved a more extensive—and expensive—plan totaling $423 million.

The project reportedly will combine steel-framed and mass timber construction. Work is expected to begin next month.

A new campus with more meeting space

As things stand currently, TDEM occupies offices at 313 Anderson Lane, near the intersection of Interstate 35 and Highway 183, but this location reportedly has limited meeting space. In addition, the agency leases about 25,000 square feet of meeting rooms at a nearby hotel and has also converted 10 to 15 guest rooms there into additional meeting spaces.

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READ ALSO: Top 5 Office Projects Under Construction in Austin

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The plans approved in November specified a 296,000-square-foot campus on 48 acres at 4125 S. Farm-to-Market Road 973, east of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. The complex would have included a five-story office building and the new state emergency operations center, but the recently approved amendment expanded the scope.

The extra funding will add a 38,000-square-foot sixth floor to the office building, as well as expand the overall property with a 15,400-square-foot warehouse, a 900-space parking garage and a 1,200-square-foot secure facility for the processing of sensitive compartmented information.

The new emergency operations center will be 90,068 square feet and designed to withstand 200 mph windstorms. The building is set to include meeting rooms and spaces for a joint information center, press conference room and GIS workroom.

Austin’s office pipeline soars

Austin had some 4.3 million square feet of office space under construction as of March, representing 4.6 percent of total stock, according to a recent CommercialEdge report. The metro lagged Dallas-Fort Worth, (more than 5.1 million square feet in the development pipeline), but surpassed Houston (about 1.8 million square feet underway).

Notable office projects that came online in Austin in the first quarter of this year include Uptown ATX ‘s One Uptown, a 381,739-square-foot Class A mid-rise that is part of Brandywine Realty Trust’s 66-acre mixed-use community dubbed Uptown ATX. At full build-out, the campus will include 3.2 million square feet of residential, retail and office space.