Stream Realty gets green light for six-story office project in East Austin

A six-story office building will replace an East Austin warehouse that’s been home to a coffee roasting company since the ’90s.

Dallas-based Stream Realty Partners plans to develop 1400 E. Fourth St. into a 170,000-square-foot office building with ground-floor retail. Austin City Council granted the firm a rezoning request yesterday that will allow the project, which will be called 1400 East, to rise 85 feet in an area that typically caps development at 40 feet.

1400 East Fourth Street (Perkins&Will)

Stream’s project underscores optimism in Austin’s office market recovery as companies relocate and expand to the region in droves. Austin’s economy has been among the quickest in the U.S. to recover from the pandemic, which has helped create a demand for office space even though many companies have yet to fully return to the office. Recent high-profile leases include Facebook parent company Meta Platform’s lease at Sixth and Guadalupe that will span 33 floors, plus leases in other downtown high-rises from TikTok and Snap, the parent company for Snapchat.

“We’re seeing, in real time, companies from across sectors from tech to finance to law, in Austin, making pretty meaningful bets on the return to office,” said Connor Greissing, managing director and partner at Stream Austin. “It may look much different than it was in 2019, prior to the pandemic, but we are seeing companies that are local, regional and international bet on establishing hubs within Austin.

1400 East Fourth Street (Perkins&Will)

“That gives us the confidence with 1400 E. Fourth, to really create something special, and it’s urged us to not think of this office development as just building another glass box.”

Perkins&Will is designing the project, which Greissing said will incorporate private outdoor space on each floor in response to changing workplace needs post-pandemic. Stream’s Clay Golden and David Blackbird are also involved in the project. Stream has not yet hired a general contractor.

Greissing said the firm is targeting a late 2024 delivery. He didn’t provide an estimated cost for the project.

Texas Coffee Traders, the roasting company that operates at 1400 E. Fourth St., will be relocating to another area in East Austin, company owners stated on their website. They bought the building in 1996.

“Over the last 26 years, however, the neighborhood has changed. We are now surrounded by development,” the statement reads. “That change and growth has come with challenges for a coffee roastery. We could make a list of the challenges but number one is that the value of this property has created a tax burden that we can no longer bear.”

Greissing said Stream will close on the property within the month and declined to disclose the purchase price.

East Austin has become a magnet for development as the Austin area explodes with project activity, which has caused some concern for longtime Austinities in the area who are worried of being priced out of their homes. East Austin was historically home to the city’s minority communities due to the city’s mandated segregation, with an official boundary that eventually became part of I-35 and remained an unofficial dividing line of wealth and status.

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