Stakeholder Meetings, First Round

Beginning in mid-May, members of the DAP team and City of Austin staff have held or scheduled interviews with stakeholders and groups including:

• Mayor Will Wynn and members of the Austin City Council
• Austin City Manager’s Office
• Downtown neighborhoods
• Neighborhoods adjacent to Downtown and the Austin Neighborhoods Council
• Historic preservationists
• Affordable housing advocates
• Downtown real estate brokers
• Downtown real estate developers
• Downtown private property owners
• Liveable City
• Downtown Austin Allliance board
• West End Austin Alliance
• Live music interests — performers, promoters, club owners
• Bicycle advocates
• Capital Metro
• Austin Revitalization Authority and African-American businesses
• Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
• State Rep. Mike Krusee (chair, House Transportation Committee)
• University of Texas at Austin

Meetings with additional stakeholders whose input is needed for the Downtown Austin Plan are currently being scheduled. These groups include parks and open space advocates, East Austin business and community leaders, arts and cultural institutions, and county and state government officials. Additional stakeholder groups were also identified as part of the May series of meetings, and interviews with these groups are ongoing.

The purpose of these initial meetings is primarily for the consultant team to listen and document issues raised by stakeholders, rather than to guide discussion and decision-making on existing policies and proposals. A second round of stakeholder interviews will be conducted after the release of the DAP team's preliminary report and will be guided by that report's contents.

Samplings of stakeholder input raised during the stakeholder meetings will be made available here at the DAP Web site.

Baseline Analysis: Conditions, Challenges and Opportunities

Work is under way now on several tasks that will help the City and the consultant team take stock of existing conditions and prior planning efforts and define the appropriate "starting point" of the Downtown Austin Plan. These include:

• Fiscal data - identifying tax revenue, tax base, asset values, and public investment specific to Downtown
• Resident and workforce demographics
• Economic analysis, including local, regional and national development trends
• Capacity analysis, identifying the Downtown development potential with current land use, transportation and infrastructure
• Building types trend analysis, modeling and visual reconnaisance
• Assessment of potential financing tools and incentives
• Assessment of past and current Downtown plans and policies
• Organizational assessment of current Downtown stakeholders

These tasks are scheduled to be completed in June and early July of 2007.