From Armadillo World Headquarters to Athleisure World Headquarters

WEBVTT

00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:01.546
Hey y'all, corey Ames here.

00:00:01.546 --> 00:00:06.788
I'm very excited to welcome you to the first of our Ensemble Texas editorials.

00:00:06.788 --> 00:00:14.050
It's a different type of episode, something a little shorter but in maybe many ways a bit more punchy.

00:00:14.050 --> 00:00:23.748
We'll still be exploring the cultural, environmental and economic shifts and changes that are happening in San Antonio and across Texas, but in a bit of a different way.

00:00:23.748 --> 00:00:45.326
And so today's episode, titled From Armadillo World Headquarters to Athleisure World Headquarters, will reflect on Austin, texas's transformation from its iconic music and countercultural roots to its rise as a hub for tech and more modern industry.

00:00:45.326 --> 00:00:48.860
But this obviously isn't just about Austin.

00:00:48.860 --> 00:00:55.853
It's about what we in San Antonio can learn as our city changes and grows.

00:00:55.853 --> 00:01:13.591
But before we dive in, if you're interested in more stories just like this one, make sure to sign up for our newsletters at EnsembleTexascom, where we share the latest on San Antonio, texas' culture, the environment and what's happening here in the Alamo City.

00:01:13.591 --> 00:01:25.051
All right, y'all, let's jump into this episode, our first Ensemble Texas editorial titled From Armadillo World Headquarters to Athleisure World Headquarters.

00:01:27.921 --> 00:01:31.590
Austin Texas, a city that's near and dear to my wife and I's love story.

00:01:31.590 --> 00:01:38.093
It's where we met and, in a short time after, it's where together we left and moved south to San Antonio.

00:01:38.093 --> 00:01:46.582
I moved to Austin in the summer of 2016 and felt for the first time that I was doing something radically different with my life, setting out on my own.

00:01:46.582 --> 00:01:53.084
I had traveled a good amount before, but moving to Texas was the first time I really lived somewhere else.

00:01:53.084 --> 00:02:00.364
I lived a 20-minute walk away from one of the most famed streets in the whole town.

00:02:00.364 --> 00:02:08.580
If it could still be called that South Congress town.

00:02:08.580 --> 00:02:09.824
If it could still be called that South Congress.

00:02:09.824 --> 00:02:26.090
Neither of my subjects for this story I'm telling here existed in the short year or so span I lived in Austin One in the past, which arguably created the culture that attracted people like myself to move there, and one in the future that was built to capitalize on an opportunity to serve people somewhat like myself who now occupy the area.

00:02:26.760 --> 00:02:28.288
We'll start with the latter Music Lane.

00:02:28.288 --> 00:02:46.663
Music Lane, a massive 163,000 square foot complex with retail storefronts, restaurants and more, now with an undeniable presence just down the street from where the birthplace of Austin's live music heritage sits.

00:02:46.663 --> 00:02:55.551
Music Lane was developed by Turnbridge Equities, whose tagline reads on their website uncovering opportunity, creating value.

00:02:55.551 --> 00:03:05.525
Turnbridge Equities was founded by Andrew Joblong, who grew up in Massachusetts and cut his teeth in real estate development, working for one of the most highly regarded firms in New York City.

00:03:05.525 --> 00:03:17.867
It was there that he met his future partner in Turnbridge, ryan Nelson, a Nebraska native who, to his credit, did happen to get an MBA from the University of Texas McComb School of Business in Austin.

00:03:18.670 --> 00:03:32.223
As it was written in Jablone's profile in the Real Deal Real Estate News, when Jablone arrived there were just two national tenants on the entire shopping strip of South Congress Javalon described to the Real Deal Real Estate News reporter.

00:03:32.223 --> 00:03:38.342
Our thesis was Austin doesn't have its iconic street like the rest of the cities its size.

00:03:38.342 --> 00:03:44.522
We thought if we could obtain some critical mass there, that we could have something special.

00:03:44.522 --> 00:03:51.945
I think it's worth highlighting what Joblin said in his observation of Austin Blah, blah, blah, no iconic street.

00:03:51.945 --> 00:03:55.413
Blah blah, blah, we could have something special.

00:03:55.413 --> 00:04:04.866
Was he referring to himself and his firm's portfolio, or was he referring to the community of South Austin and specifically the culture of South Congress?

00:04:04.866 --> 00:04:09.235
Well, here's a description of Music Lane's tenants from that same real estate publication.

00:04:09.819 --> 00:04:13.949
The ground floor retail caters to Austin's new-moneyed athleisured elite.

00:04:13.949 --> 00:04:22.387
Hermes, rag Bone, equinox, lululemon, lullabo and Sweetgreen are some of the tenants that together take up more than 1,700 feet of frontage.

00:04:22.387 --> 00:04:29.367
Above them lie offices for Deloitte, gensler and McKinsey Company, full of people likely to patronize those places.

00:04:29.367 --> 00:04:35.783
The whole thing is anchored by a Soho house which Jablons brought in through a personal connection early in the development process.

00:04:35.783 --> 00:04:41.000
He kept the news quiet, though Our goal was to buy everything we could around it.

00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:47.142
Jablons said Okay, hang up your slacks, grab some jeans and rip a hole in them if there isn't one already.

00:04:47.142 --> 00:04:50.329
Let's jump back to talk about something special.

00:04:50.329 --> 00:05:10.391
That happened a few minutes walk away from that iconic shopping strip, south Congress in the 1970s, wedged between South Congress, riverside Drive and South First, at 525 and a half Barton Springs Road.

00:05:10.471 --> 00:05:28.632
On August 7th 1970, armadillo World Headquarters, texas Music Hall and Beer Garden opened its doors with ambitions to become a music center of the universe, and you could easily make the case that concert promoter Eddie Wilson and the other few founding members of the Dillo did just that.

00:05:28.632 --> 00:05:39.014
From 1970 to 1980, the venue welcomed the likes of Willie Nelson, waylon Jennings, ray Charles, stevie Ray Vaughan, zz Top, freddie Fender, freddie King and Frank Zappa.

00:05:39.014 --> 00:05:46.502
Bruce Springsteen played shows there, acdc played there, the Clash played there, along with many, many others.

00:05:46.502 --> 00:05:57.353
Although illicit activity within the venue's doors was ubiquitous, the city of Austin embraced it, even naming its shuttle bus service, the Dillo, in its honor.

00:05:57.353 --> 00:06:13.255
Ann Richards, who served as the 45th governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995, said Armadillo World Headquarters was one of the most exciting and remained one of the most exciting places in the United States for the years that it was in operation.

00:06:13.255 --> 00:06:28.997
Her daughter, cecile Richards, who served as the president of Planned Parenthood for 12 years, said Armadillo World Headquarters became such a center of not only great music and people who probably would have never performed in Austin, but it became a cultural cornerstone.

00:06:30.117 --> 00:06:35.454
A story in Time Magazine said that Armadillo World Headquarters was to Austin as the Fillmore.

00:06:35.454 --> 00:06:40.071
Another historic venue was to San Francisco in the 1960s.

00:06:40.071 --> 00:06:42.920
Would Austin be the live music capital of the world without the Dillo?

00:06:42.920 --> 00:06:49.468
Eddie Wilson, as mentioned one of the founders, said in his memoir Armadillo people blazed the trail that others followed.

00:06:49.468 --> 00:07:02.240
As Wilson further explained, austin's city limits came about in the mid-70s after years of pioneering efforts, based at Armadillo World headquarters, to get Austin music on televisions and cable.

00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:08.990
The annual ACL Music Festival at Zilker Park in Austin was a spinoff from that very TV series.

00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:22.333
Regardless of the details of who gets credit for what, it's clear that the masterminds behind the Armadillo World headquarters uncovered an opportunity in Austin, texas, to create some real value.

00:07:22.333 --> 00:07:28.826
The only problem, as the author of the Real Deal profile wrote, the hippies couldn't hold it together.

00:07:28.826 --> 00:07:32.127
The Dillo was a financial flounder.

00:07:32.127 --> 00:07:40.964
The venue couldn't stay afloat, citing the high costs of paying for acts with a combination of low ticket prices to get people in the door as well.

00:07:40.964 --> 00:07:50.552
They were sitting on five-plus acres of prime real estate in a rapidly changing Austin Texas, which, of course, was expensive and only got more so.

00:07:50.552 --> 00:08:02.384
They filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1977, hung on for a few more years and finally hosted their last show on December 31st 1980, before they had to close their doors for good.

00:08:02.384 --> 00:08:34.658
Thanks for watching.

00:08:36.061 --> 00:08:37.726
Turns out, culture ain't cheap.

00:08:37.726 --> 00:08:43.648
It's hard to argue that the Armadillo World Headquarters wasn't a smash success.

00:08:43.648 --> 00:08:52.013
And for the city of Austin, it's hard to argue that the Armadillo World Headquarters didn't create something absolutely invaluable An interesting culture.

00:08:52.013 --> 00:08:58.293
A culture so interesting, so compelling, so valuable, that others see an opportunity.

00:08:58.293 --> 00:09:01.067
I should also say there's never not culture.

00:09:01.067 --> 00:09:02.922
It's just a matter of what culture becomes.

00:09:03.001 --> 00:09:06.529
As time passes, things change and cultural phenomena age out.

00:09:06.529 --> 00:09:14.524
To be fair, maybe you could say Austin's new money is in the driver's seat of dictating Austin's culture now and into the near future.

00:09:14.524 --> 00:09:36.222
Creating something interesting, worthwhile, historic, something worth talking about, writing books about and recounting countless stories about, requires serious creativity, real entrepreneurial spirit and a willingness to do things, make things and preserve things people value that they might not be prepared to pay for.

00:09:36.222 --> 00:09:41.653
To be clear, I'm not saying that development and change are bad indiscriminately.

00:09:41.653 --> 00:09:49.827
Perhaps the something special about the likes of an Armadillo World headquarters is the moment in time, the era that it possessed.

00:09:49.827 --> 00:09:54.282
Maybe that was something or someplace that was supposed to cease to exist at some point.

00:09:54.282 --> 00:09:55.764
Nothing is forever.

00:09:55.764 --> 00:10:09.831
However, in the change, in the development, we need to be careful, extremely careful, as to what it's all for Creating value, truly creating value, or extracting it.

00:10:10.940 --> 00:10:16.513
Armadillo World Headquarters was a financial failure but, at the same time, an absolute historic success.

00:10:16.513 --> 00:10:38.981
It doesn't always have to be that way, financially unsustainable, for something to be special and celebrated, but it's worth us, as San Antonians, interrogating if our actions as individuals and as community members are both creating and preserving a culture that we want to be part of.

00:10:38.981 --> 00:10:47.091
Is our culture becoming a commodity, cheap, something that could be bought or sold, or something worth vastly more.

00:10:47.091 --> 00:11:06.323
Our culture can be cheap if we in San Antonio as a community decide to let it be, or, given just how rich in culture we as a city are, as all of us can so clearly see, we can and should ensure it remains invaluable.

00:11:06.323 --> 00:11:18.621
South Austin it was home to the Texas Music Hall, responsible for the capital city of the Lone Star State becoming the live music capital of the world, and now it's home to Music Lane.

00:11:18.621 --> 00:11:28.633
Sure, maybe the hippies couldn't hold that venue together, but the culture they created vastly outgrew what only their band of hippies could carry on.

00:11:28.633 --> 00:11:47.961
Maybe a handoff was missed or reinforcements never came, because it's a community that both creates and protects what's special, especially when others uncover their opportunity to extract value by creating a commodity.

00:11:47.961 --> 00:12:03.567
All right, y'all.

00:12:03.567 --> 00:12:04.227
That's a wrap.

00:12:04.307 --> 00:12:08.850
Thanks so much for listening to or watching this episode of Ensemble Texas.

00:12:08.850 --> 00:12:13.611
If you enjoyed this episode, please don't hesitate to like, subscribe or leave a review.

00:12:13.611 --> 00:12:27.878
And as well, I'd encourage you to sign up for our weekly newsletters at EnsembleTexascom, where each Tuesday, we share more stories, insights and updates on San Antonio and Texas's environmental, economic and cultural landscape.

00:12:27.878 --> 00:12:36.956
Every Thursday, we send out a special curated list of things to do in the greater San Antonio area to help you get better connected to this city and region.

00:12:36.956 --> 00:12:46.860
We call home and if you're interested in promoting your business or organization on our show or through any of our other Ensemble Texas platforms, we'd love to hear from you.

00:12:46.860 --> 00:12:52.371
Just send an email to sponsor at ensembletexascom for more information.

00:12:52.371 --> 00:13:02.725
And finally, if you'd like to connect with me, corey Ames, directly I'm most active on LinkedIn or you can send an inquiry through my personal site at CoreyAmescom.

00:13:02.725 --> 00:13:07.303
That's where I field inquiries for public speaking content, collaborations and more.

00:13:07.303 --> 00:13:08.407
All right, y'all.

00:13:08.407 --> 00:13:10.832
Thank you again, until next time.