East Austin apartment projects keep a-comin’

A spate of new apartment projects are coming to East Austin. 

In the past two weeks, a handful of major developments totaling nearly 900,000 square feet and hundreds of apartments appeared in state filings. 

The most expensive of the projects, dubbed Seabrook Square, will make use of public funds. In February, it requested $11.5 million from Austin’s Rental Housing Development Assistance program. The $52 million development at 3515 Manor Road in the Mueller community is attributed to an LLC with the same address as the NHP Foundation, an affordable housing nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.

Seabrook Square will comprise three buildings: a garage and two residential structures. One will stand five stories, the other four stories. The filings do not specify the number of units. 

Construction is set to begin in August and run through October 2025. The project’s designs come from Urban Foundry, an architecture firm in Austin.  

Mueller has been a hotbed of development activity in recent years as Catellus Development Group has led a master-planned redevelopment of the former Robert Mueller Municipal Airport, northeast of downtown. 

Just east of the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, developers filed plans to build Airport Crossing, a $41.5 million apartment complex made up of two buildings. Airport Crossing will comprise a total of 256 apartments across 292,500 square feet. 

The ownership LLC shares an address with Cleveland-based NRP Group, one of the country’s top 10 multifamily developers, according to the National Multifamily Housing Council. The firm has started construction on more than 8,700 units in the last two years. This project is slated to finish construction by February 2026. 

San Antonio-based Alta Architects handled design. 

Rounding out the trio is Trinsic Cesar Chavez, a $40 million development at 2915 East Cesar Chavez Street. Estimated to be completed by April 2026, the project will have 310 apartments and three courtyards, including two swimming pools, across 283,200 square feet.

The firm went to Austin-based Davies Collaborative for architecture work on the project.

Trinsic, based in Dallas, has been active across the Sun Belt, with the 322-unit Aura High Pointe project at 6107 North FM 620 being its most notable Austin project to date. 

Elsewhere in the area, Los Angeles-based CIM Group is seeking a zoning exception to build a 145-unit apartment complex up to 90 feet tall in the Plaza Saltillo district. 

Rent growth has slowed significantly in Austin since its highs in 2020 and 2021. Still, robust population growth and relatively tight supply prior to the recent cooldown has made Austin a hot commodity for multifamily players. Last year, new apartment deliveries accounted for 5.4 percent of total inventory, the highest in the country, according to data from Yardi.