Tug-and-pull of new, old visible on downtown’s Rainey Street
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Rainey Street is full of sounds of construction on a daily basis--a noise resident Fina Luz Fabela says is a far cry from the Mexican-American neighborhood where she grew up.
She says it's now a party street and it's rare to find another longtime homeowner.
"I mean, this used to be a family neighborhood where there was little bungalows and we knew each other," Fabela said. "I'm trying to hold on. It just gets kind of unnerving at times."
Bangers owner Ben Siegel says at the beginning of the year there were only a handful of bars and restaurants on the iconic Austin street, now there's almost a dozen.
"With another four or five that are in either permitting or development," Siegel said.
Since Rainey Street is a historic neighborhood, Siegel said the city made it tough for him to get his business off the ground. Officials recently told him he had to shut down the parking lot behind his bar.
"I can't use a parking lot as a parking lot that's been a parking lot for 15 years," he said.
While bar and restaurant owners are taking over many of the old houses on Rainey Street, developers also realize the street's potential. A 23-story apartment building is going up at the south end of the street.
On the neighborhood's north side where Rainey meets downtown at Red River and Cesar Chavez, Fairmont Hotels and Resorts is planning to build a 50-story hotel by 2015.
Construction is one of Fabela's biggest gripes. The noise makes it hard to sleep, but she plans to live with it.
"Every morning you hear the bang. Every morning, 7 a.m., you hear all this construction noise," she said. "It's my home, it's our home. It's what I know."
Business owner Bridget Dunlap is credited with starting the Rainey Street bar trend. She opened Lustre Pearl and Clive Bar in 2009.