Surf's up for Austin's LEVY Architects as it lands more big projects
Article - Austin Business Journal
Stephen Levy has caught a design wave and he's sitting on top of the world. The Austin architect recently was named to the team that's creating the NLand Surf Park— a potentially world-class tourist designation east of Austin — while he has also recently finished a couple of high-profile creative office spaces.
What's more, he's been tapped to design a new office project in Southwest Austin on behalf of San Francisco-based Drawbridge Realty, which ABJ featured exclusively for subscribers in Friday's weekly print edition.
"We're pushing the envelope here in every sense so it's not just a boring box," Levy said. "There's relief, articulation and scale on a human level."
The 5301 Southwest Parkway office project will be built near an existing property that Drawbridge Realty purchased in 2014. That existing 164,000-square-foot structure had been built by Transwestern as a build-to-suit for Overwatch Systems.
When Drawbridge acquired that building, they also inherited the adjoining development site, which will have 120,000 square feet of highly designed office space.
Since opening his own firm in 2003, Levy has handled a variety of residential and commercial building designs.
His work on Austin-based Endeavor Real Estate Group's creative office project at 2021 E. Fifth St. captured Drawbridge's attention and led to the adaptive reuse design for the Alvin Devane building in Southeast Austin — also on behalf of Drawbridge — and now the Southwest Parkway building.
And in what may have been a major coup in Levy Architects' history was winning the assignment to handle design for NLand Surf Park, an ambitious recreational project that's being developed by Coors Brewing Co. descendant Doug Coors. The recreational facility under construction near State Highways 71 and 130 will feature the latest wave technology ever presented for commercial uses and is expected to draw surfers and tourists from around the world.
Levy said his firm was the last major team to be hired for the project, at the behest of other subcontractors.
Several significant architects had been considered for the much-ballyhooed development such as STG Design, based in Austin, and Lake/Flato, based in San Antonio.
Levy said he immediately clicked with Doug Coors as they both share a strong love for the outdoors. That mutual affinity, Levy said, may have been the tipping point.
Levy has several other projects in process and he's leaving soon on a business trip to Argentina. I'll keep readers informed about what his journey will bring to the Austin landscape in the days ahead.
