Inside Zilker Studios, South Austin’s Latest Affordable Housing Community
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.
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.
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.
