Officials, Greystar Begin North Austin Redevelopment Project

North Austin’s St. Johns neighborhood is about to get a long-awaited facelift on the site of a vacant home improvement store.

Greystar, the City of Austin and the Housing Authority of the City of Austin will soon begin the first phase of a multifamily development that will transform a 19-acre tract in the historic neighborhood, KVUE reported.

As part of the development, the 13.8-acre former Home Depot at 7211 North Interstate 35 will be demolished. The city purchased the site in 2008 with funds from a $58 million bond package approved by voters in 2006. Bond money was also used to acquire the adjacent former Chrysler Dealership.

“One of the reasons it’s taken so long is because we haven’t done a similar type of project, and there have been so many different thoughts and iterations of what we wanted to do,” council member Chito Vela told the outlet. “We kept going back to the drawing board and again and again.”

The project is slated for 526 multifamily units, with 50 percent of them reserved as affordable housing, for households whose earnings are within 50-70 percent area median income in Austin.

The site will also include 15,000 square feet of commercial space, a clubhouse and an expanded park. Construction will start next summer, and the first batch of homes should be completed by late 2025.

The St. Johns neighborhood was founded by formerly enslaved people several decades after the Civil War, the outlet said.

—Quinn Donoghue