You’d better spend some time playing around with this detailed 3D model of the Zilker Studios project - we don’t usually get access to stuff like this. Like all Foundation Communities projects, the property will include on-site supportive services, along with amenities like a fitness center, game room, and community kitchen. Two heritage live oaks are preserved as part of the structure’s layout, with the larger tree serving as the centerpiece of the front courtyard overlooking South Lamar Boulevard. The project, with construction costs of approximately $17 million or $192 per square foot, is a real achievement in an era of rising materials and labor costs nationwide - but even with tight margins, the community’s design is attractive and sensitive to the needs of its occupants. Photo by James RambinĪlongside Foundation Communities and Forge Craft, the development team includes engineering firms APTUS, DCI, and Civilitude with general contracting services by Bartlett Cocke. Step outside your apartment on the top floor of the building, and you’ll find a view like this. Jon Hagar, principal at the project’s designers Forge Craft Architecture + Design, asks us on a recent tour of the Zilker Studios construction site to imagine the impact of the seven-story building on the lives of Austinites who might have previously struggled with substandard or unsafe housing situations - and will now enjoy million-dollar views from comfortable, private residences when the building opens next year:

Foundation Communities September 29, 2022 Recently, one of the architects, Jon Hagar of toured the building with real estate journalist James Rambin, and they invited us to join them.

We’re just months away from opening Zilker Studios, an affordable community for single adults on South Lamar. Each of its studio residences averaging 431 square feet in size will be rented at deeply affordable rates to single adults earning no more than 50 percent of the Austin metro’s Median Family Income, many of them transitioning directly from homelessness. With a clean modern design and incredible panoramic views of the downtown skyline from a hillside at the edge of the coveted Zilker neighborhood, the 110-unit apartment building now nearing the end of construction at 1508 South Lamar Boulevard looks like it’s almost ready to hit South Austin’s hungry luxury market - but Zilker Studios, the latest project from local nonprofit Foundation Communities, has a higher calling. The business has developed an award-winning apprentice programme to help tackle a skills shortage in the construction sector as it reinforces itself as one of the UK’s leading connections providers.Zilker Studios as seen from South Lamar Boulevard. Recent projects Aptus has worked on in the Midlands area include a Vistry Group development at Lea Castle in Kidderminster and Taylor Wimpey’s Lawley Village Phase 10 development in Shropshire.Īptus Utilities employs 125 staff at its Bolton head office with a further 180 site staff across the North and Midlands. “Due to our focus on increasing operations in the region, we’re now looking to recruit ahead to support our ambitious growth plans.” We’re able to support local and national housebuilders from this site and are looking forward to developing more new partnerships in the future. Our clients benefit from our streamlined approach to installing utilities. Jon Patrick, Operations Manager at the Burntwood depot, said: “We’ve built a fantastic team in the Midlands and over the past three years have developed new relationships with clients across the region. Clients include national housebuilders, industrial and commercial developers and regional builders. It also offers design and build of street lighting, vehicle charging and fibre. The business has also added street lighting to 18 contracts.Īptus installs the infrastructure that provides water, gas and electricity to new build residential and commercial property developments. In the past year, the Burntwood depot has won 41 new contracts which include housebuilders Crest Nicholson and Vistry Group for developments in Warwick and Nuneaton. Midlands multi utility connections provider Aptus Utilities is celebrating business growth after winning 59 new contracts in 2021.Īptus opened its fourth depot in Burntwood Business Park in Staffordshire in 2018 and now has a team of 30 operating from the site.

Aptus construction