Feature Illustration: Artist rending of the proposed Wonder World Apartments that will be built on the closed Starplex movie theatre site in the 1200 block of Wonder World Drive by Long View Equity, LLC.
Posted: 11-12-2021
by Art Benavidez
San Marcos (Hays County) — The Planning and Zoning Commission recently gave its blessing for a 302-unit multifamily community proposed by an Austin developer.
The property zoning will convert from general commercial (GC) to character district-5 (CD-5).
The 12.75-acre site is the former home to the 45,247 square-foot Starplex movie theater, which closed in 2020, and is located at 1250 Wonder World Drive in the southeast portion of the city.
Daniel Campbell with Long View Equity, LLC said they saw the site as a great opportunity to develop the multifamily development, Wonder World Apartments.
“Theatres are built with auditoriums, especially this site, it has big slanted slabs,” he said. “They are very special use buildings that are hard to reuse. We saw this as an opportunity for a well done redevelopment.”
“We look at this site as a site that has kind of outgrown what it used to be and look to breathe life into what it can be,” Campbell added. “We see a nice mix of multifamily and commercial, together.”
“We love the fact that it is right across the street from a number of medical employers. It’s a way to take property that has outseen its usefulness and move it into something that can contribute to the community.”
Campbell added that it would not be a “by-the-bed student housing” development.
“It will be a mix of three, two and one-bedroom housing and will have some townhomes and some more traditional urban stuff as part of the project,” he said.
The total net rentable square footage proposed is 263,437 square feet. There is another 9,500 square feet of air-conditioned space in the clubhouse, which includes a leasing office, fitness center and some retail space.
The Houston office of Steinberg Dickey Collaborative, LLP released a conceptual site plan that showed:
- 10 buildings
- 104 one-bedroom/one bath units at 630 SF
- 88 one-bedroom/one bath units at 756 SF
- 38 two-bedroom/two bath units at 1,101 SF
- 56 two-bedroom/two bath units at 1,205 SF
- 5 two-bedroom/two bath units at 1,233 SF
- 11 three-bedroom/two bath units at 1,446 SF
- 449 parking spaces
- Pool court
- Cabana
- Dog park
The 449 proposed parking spaces would reduce the surface parking area by more than a third from its current 708 spaces, according to a survey done in August by Blew & Associates of Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Texas Cinema Corp., out of Austin, currently owns the property.
VBX Project ID: 2021-7D6C
art@virtualbx.com