The Seaholm Story

Yes, the Seaholm is now an office shopping complex. But it used to be a power plant -- the big one for our town. This elaborate sign tells the tale.

Ten Years Later

Ten years ago today we started this blog with a picture of the Ballet Austin building which was under construction. That picture, looking east, showed the AMLI on Second building still under construction. Our building was just rising up looking the other direction. Looking west today from that spot, ten years later, you can see our building on the right, occupied now for about nine years. You can see a building under construction just to the left of that. This is the Independent Condominiums which will rise across the creek to be the tallest building in Austin. To the left of that, you can see the completed Seaholm Condominiums. The cranes across Nueces from the Ballet are for an office building called Third+Shoal. It's amazing what a difference ten years makes.

Juice

A part of 2nd Street west of the old, re-purposed Seaholm Electric Plant has been designated Electric Drive and has places to plug in electric vehicles as well as a solar-powered charging station for bikes and gadgets. See here.

New Mural

This new mural along Walter Seaholm is very striking and the woman in black with the white dog fits right in.

Glowing wall art

This decorative wall art for the Seaholm Condominums seems to be a brightly painted group of furnace doors salvaged from the old Power Plant.

Electric Drive

Austin has repurposed an old power plant (Seaholm) for restaurants and offices and built up the surrounding area with other businesses, condos, apartments, and stores. As part of this new district, they rechristened part of West Second as 'Electric Drive.' To emphasize this they added charging stations for electric cars. Jackie caught one being powered up.

Art Descent

This art piece was just installed on the wall by the stairs to a parking level at the new Seaholm development.

Seaholm Sign

The new Seaholm District is taking shape. Old pipes were configured into a sign in the plaza between the soon-to-open condo tower and the retail area. The plaza leads to the old power plant building with the (decommissioned) smoke stacks. The power plant building will contain offices and a least one restaurant.

Looming large

The huge Seaholm project is still underway, just southwest of where we live. I took this shot the other day while on my exercise walk. It's fun for me to contrast all of these large buildings with the Austin of my youth. 

The old and the new

The power plant was the source of electricity for the Austin of my youth. Now it is part of the burgeoning Seaholm development near the shores of Lady Bird Lake.

Power Plant Reimagined

Our historic, decommissioned power plant, The Seaholm, has been reimagined as a mixed use development. Here you see the street, Walter Seaholm Dr., open to traffic. In the old plant there are now office workers and soon there will be a restaurant. In the low building on the far left, a new Trader Joe's store recently opened and some offices are on the second floor. The unfinished taller building is the Seaholm condominiums which appeared in a picture a few days ago from the east side on the pedestrian bridge. We are delighted with the new sidewalk which gives us access to the trail.

It's Beginning to Look Like a Neighborhood

This street at Seaholm looks welcoming but there is still a lot of construction going on. Taken by my friend Jackie a few weeks ago.

More landscaping.

Lots of workers were busily planting more bushes outside the burgeoning Seaholm plant development.

Coming Soon...A Downtown Trader Joe's

It's not open yet but it's promised within a few weeks. This store will be in the retail area of the Seaholm Development. Our friend Jackie sot this on a recent walk. We have two other Trader Joe's in Austin but we are waiting to shop when we can walk there. This is just a few hundred feet from our front door.

Seaholm Transforming

The old decommissioned Seaholm Power Plant is being made into a multi-use development, with a hotel as the centerpiece.  Here you see a big rendering of what the final result will look like. Please click on the photo above to make it larger so you can see the rendering.

Digging It!

The Seaholm Project which will include a host of multi-use purposes, including a Trader Joe's, apartments, offices and plenty of retail outlets and restaurants, is finally on the way to becoming reality. I took this photo from the end of our hall today.  The excavation is underway!

Four Seasons in Confection

For those of you who have seen the Four Seasons Austin, appreciate how accurate this gingerbread rendition is in the confection village. If you haven't seen it, take my word for it! To its right is the Seaholm Power Plant which in reality is about ten blocks away. But we give the bakers license for that just as we do for the frosting of snow which we rarely ever see.

Sky

It's been so long since it rained here that I'm glad to see clouds...even if they don't promise rain. This is what I call a Simpsons sky (after the titles in the cartoon The Simpsons) providing a background for the stacks at the decommissioned Seaholm power plant near our house.

Snow on the old power plant

I took this photo of the now-decommissioned Seaholm Power Plant from our 10th floor exercise room window on Friday. Someday soon this old plant, which used to provide a great deal of the electricity for Austin, will be an area boasting a hotel, shopping, and offices. The vegetation on the right is on our pool deck.

Seaholm Light Show

The Seaholm Power Plant was transformed Friday night for the last leg of Ballet Austin's Party of the Decade. Even the decommissioned exhaust pipes (which will remain as an architectural element when the property is transformed) got in on the act.