Studio Balcones created 5.8 acres of restored wetlands, woodlands, and wildflower meadow on this City of Austin property.
The objective for the City of Austin Convention Center Marshalling Yard expansion project was to create a warehouse and yard space to stage and coordinate logistics for large trucks and deliveries ahead of events at the Convention Center in downtown Austin.
The space was also intended to double as an emergency shelter. Since its completion the City has since done exactly that. In 2023 Austin declared an emergency in the face of an ongoing housing affordability crisis and increasingly dire circumstances for Austin’s unhoused. The 70,000 square foot warehouse now has 300 shelter beds, doubling the previous amount, and will operate for at least 1 year while other more permanent shelter projects are completed. The project achieved a LEED Silver Rating, a highlight of which includes the water harvesting system that utilizes HVAC condensate and rainwater collected from the building roof for landscape irrigation, as well as the management of stormwater onsite in three large, vegetated, bio-filtration and detention ponds.
A major landscape component of the project was restoration of over 20 acres of land including 28,000 square feet of restored wetland habitat, 438 caliper inches of new forest canopy trees, over 28,000 tree seedlings of 17 different species as well as over 25,000 rooted shrubs, grasses, and understory plantings, 6 acres of soil restoration and overseeding of 54 pounds of native meadow seed mix.
