Austin Takes on New Rainwater Management System

AUSTIN, Texas — BOKA Powell, headquartered in Dallas, is paving a new future for green design in Austin. The recent completion of the 280,000-square-foot RiverView sustainable apartment complex at LadyBird Lake demonstrated a new means of rainwater management for the city on a difficult urban waterfront site.

“The advantages of the site are the view and the natural setting for the resident, but that’s about it,” said Eric Van Hyfte, AIA, project manager at the firm’s Austin office.

The complex, which is seeking LEED Silver certification, includes 302 apartments, a fitness center, pool, resident lounge soundproof “jam room,” demonstration kitchen and business center.

The sensitive location of the complex caused many restrictions in building, Van Hyfte said. Because of this, the firm collaborated with the city to ensure protection of the lake and to create accessible routes to the waterfront. The building also employs a unique rainwater management system — the first of its kind for Austin.

“We’re capturing all the rainwater that falls on the roof and anything that falls in the courtyards between the building,” Van Hyfte said. “The courtyards are a combination of landscaping and impervious surface.”

The underground parking garage is covered in a green roof system that collects, filters and stores rainwater in a below-grade cistern for irrigation.

“Essentially, it’s an open-to-the-air water quality structure that, instead of just being a concrete pit with some sand in it, actually has plants in it that can survive in various amounts of water,” Van Hyfte said. “The plants filter the water and the water travels through the sand to a very large cistern at the lowest level of the garage using that to irrigate water.”

The decision to use the rainwater management was not an easy one, Van Hyfte said. The region places a large focus on water quality, and the rainwater system was the topic of several conversations between city officials and the project team. The system was changed several times in order to come to a consensus. Though the process was lengthy, future projects will benefit from the new stormwater management system.

“[The stormwater management system] was, frankly, a pretty painful process for us, but I think that because of the work that we did on this project, it’s becoming a lot more common and the city is a lot more comfortable with it now,” he said. “I think it’s something that we’ll be doing in more of our projects in the future and I expect the next time we do it, it’s going to be a whole lot easier.”

Other sustainable features include water-saving plumbing fixtures, low-VOC fixtures, local and recycled materials, and preferred parking for fuel-efficient vehicles.

The complex is also an example in the increasing popularity of high-density living in the region, according to Van Hyfte. The four buildings of the complex range from five to 11 stories on a four-acre site. The complex’s high density is a major benefit because it makes mass transit more viable, tax revenue is generated from a smaller piece of property, and it creates less traffic and, therefore, less pollution.

Van Hyfte said that if the complex instead consisted of single-family homes, the project would have required an 80-acre site.