The property at 1103 S. 47th St. has some pretty sweet bones, with a seemingly intact cornice and a turret bay that extends from the 2nd to the 3rd floor. Also cool is that said turret bay has a pointed roof, a detail that’s missing from plenty of other similar buildings, including one just a few doors down. If this building were located in another part of town, it would be appreciated as one of the most interesting and attractive buildings in the neighborhood. But here in Cedar Park, it’s just one of many terrific buildings and almost blends in with the other awesome edifices in the area.

It’s not fair to say that it blends in, actually, because there’s one feature of the building that separates it from most of its neighbors- its blighted condition. This building has been sitting vacant and blighted for years, with a chain of violations dating back to at least 2009. It appears the property has been in the same family since at least the early 1980s, but we’re not sure exactly when exactly it fell into its current state of disrepair. Fortunately, the property was listed for sale back in 2018, and after some price reductions, it finally traded last year for $425K.

The property holds a tremendous amount of development potential due to its size. You can see, there’s a side yard associated with this property which is currently vacant, and the total lot size is roughly 5,500 sqft. For some reason, the property is zoned CMX-2, which requires ground-floor commercial and allows apartments above. Based on the square footage of the lot, one could build 10 units above commercial here. Using a mixed-income bonus, the owners are instead proposing a 15-unit building, with ground-floor retail. They’re working with Designblendz on the project, and we were able to get our mitts on a rendering.

You can see, the project will unfortunately result in the demolition of the building that’s currently on the site and the construction of a new mixed-use building. We would have obviously preferred to see the existing building repurposed, with an addition next door. Perhaps the existing building is too far gone after all those years of vacancy and being open to the elements. Or maybe it’s just that the economics of the deal are resulting in this outcome. Either way, the project is proceeding by right, so Cedar Park will soon swap a blighted old building for an occupied new building. From a practical perspective, it’ll be an improvement, but we’ll still be bummed to see this cool building come down.