SouthStar Bank going in at 620/SR Blvd., Offices & carwash on site plan

By LYNETTE HAALAD, Four Points News

Land at RM 620 and Steiner Ranch Boulevard is being cleared for a new Austin-based SouthStar Bank and other pad sites for future commercial development including possibly a carwash.

Plans for the the 20-acre site were approved on Feb. 19, according to Christine Barton-Holmes, senior planner at the City of Austin- Planning & Development Review Department.

Barton-Holmes said the first phase will be a bank and all of the infrastructure for the whole site. The next phase will be a medical office and the third phase, a professional office and the final phase a carwash.

Texas Engineering Solutions, LLC is the site plan applicant, and the owners are listed as Lone Star Bank and Texas MU 15 Investments, Ltd. McAden Builders Inc. is the initial builder on the site.

“We are building SouthStar Bank on the hard corner there at Steiner Ranch and 620,” said Allen McAden, CEO McAden Builders.

“We are also building two additional pads and a detention pond on lots two and three. They are just pads for further developments nothing has been selected yet at this time,” McAden said.

McAden is the general contractor and not the developer on those two pad sites.

SouthStar Bank is a family owned bank that is consolidating First Star, Lone Star and Texas Star Bank under one name. It has branches in Bee Cave, Dripping Springs and Cedar Park and in about a year, the Steiner Ranch location is expected to be open.

The local bank will be a two-story, 7,200-square-foot structure with two drive-through windows. It will have a Hill Country modern look with natural stone and an arched roof, McAden said.

He hopes to get the City of Austin vertical permit within the next three months or so and then they will immediately start construction, he said.

Barton-Holmes said, “They’ve passed everything for the site plan permits. The environmental inspection is pending as of now and then they will obtain a (City of Austin) building permit.”

Until then, site work will continue and McAden will build the site pads and the retention pond.

McAden did not want to comment about plans for the rest of the development but he knows that interest will be generated as their construction continues.

The other two pad sites are much smaller than the bank due to power lines above them, McAden said. Lower Colorado River Authority has one set of lines and the City of Austin another.

A site plan is good for three years and Barton-Holmes expects this entire site to “probably be built over the course of two years.”

“They plan on a Steiner Ranch Boulevard entrance and at the moment, the land along 620 will be a buffer,” she added.

The Hill Country Roadway Corridor development regulations state that at least 40 percent of site has to be left natural but Steiner Ranch MU 15 will leave much more than that. Plans show that 13 percent, or 2.67 acres, of the 20-acre site will be built upon.

The four buildings on the site will total just over 16,000 square feet. The proposed height of the buildings are 28-feet, the allowed height by the Hill Country Roadway regulations.

Building materials used are to be compatible with the Hill Country environment.There are to be 60 parking places at the development.

There are no critical environmental features on the site, according to the site review.

The site is currently undeveloped and located in the Panther Hollow watershed and subject to water supply rural watershed regulations.