Austin Conrad Hotel, Condos Looks Dead

First it got a haircut. Now it’s gone.

Intracorp’s planned Conrad Hotel and Condo Tower at 307 East Second Street appears dead, with CBRE now marketing the land as a development site.

The tower was initially proposed to be Austin’s tallest at 755 feet — since then, Sixth and Guadalupe has climbed to 875 feet.

The Conrad was still one of the biggest projects in the pipeline for Austin, but it could get chopped up once or twice before it works its way through. CBRE is offering it as either a full 35,300-square-foot block, or in smaller chunks. The plot, at the corner of East 2nd Street and Trinity Street, lies in the southeast portion of downtown, one of the busiest sections for new development. Directly across the street from the convention center and just north of Rainey Street, it is not far from the full-block development site of Wilson Tower, another previous contender for the city’s tallest building.

At present, the plot includes three buildings that house, among other things, a chicken restaurant and an augmented-reality room. There is also some undeveloped land in the middle. A new developer could build up to 885,000 square feet on the property, with a potential

floor-area ratio of 25-to-1 with Austin’s downtown density bonus.

Intracorp switched its designs for the project in early 2022, changing out its angular roof for a flat one. That summer, a representative for the developer told the city it planned to start construction in January 2023. When finished, the Conrad would have included 133 condos, 330 hotel keys and a 10,000-square-foot restaurant. It planned to pay a fee in lieu of including affordable housing.

It is unclear what caused Intracorp to sell rather than build. But high construction costs and a soft luxury market in Austin didn’t make matters any easier. An entity tied to Intracorp bought the land in 2022 from the family of Robert Knight, who owned the property since at least 1980, according to deed records.

The listing is being handled by Eric DeJernett, Colin Cannata and Charles Cirar of CBRE. Intracorp did not immediately return request for comment.