Although Marriott has announced that it will delay the construction of its mammoth hotel on Congress, it has already demolished the storefronts that used to house Las Manitas and the Tesoros Trading Company. This block will now sit largely vacant until Marriott feels the economy has recovered enough to proceed with construction.
Why demolish the building now?
Dunno. I can only speculate. Here are four possible explanations:
1. Marriott may have been worried that the Historic Landmark Commission would designate this block a historic landmark, a risk since Marriott won't build for another couple of years (at least). Marriott just preempted future debates.
2. Taxes. The property is worth more with buildings and hence has higher property taxes. I have trouble believing that was the reason here, though, since I'm sure almost all the value of that tract is in the land.
3. Liability. Vacant structures pose all kinds of liability risks -- they're more vulnerable to fires and trespassers.
4. Risk of the unknown. Austin changes its land-use regulations every time the wind changes direction. Marriott may have figured that demolishing the building now would hedge it against that kind of risk.
Don't think I'm condoning this. I'm not. Demolishing these street-front stores (even if vacant) saddles the rest of us with a painfully conspicuous dead spot on Austin's premier street -- a dead spot that won't be revived for several years. While other developers are busy trying to inject life into this end of Congress, Marriott is busy squeezing it out.
Downtown Austin is pockmarked with vacant lots and surface parking lots. We badly need a mechanism for discouraging property owners from warehousing vacant lots downtown. The solution is not to shut out all redevelopment to eliminate the risk of this kind of behavior. What we need is a vacant-lot surcharge or something like it. A surcharge calibrated to compensate the other downtown property owners, businesses and visitors for the very real cost of blighting a block. This might encourage property owners/developers to leave existing buildings in place or to fill in currently vacant lots, even if the structures are inexpensive and small.
Whether such a surchage would be legal is a question for another day . . .
