Luxury condos were supposed to replace Austin’s old graffiti park. Why aren’t they done?

The eye-popping street art and chaotic blasts of graffiti made the HOPE Outdoor Gallery — Austin’s old graffiti park — a fantastic photo spot. People took engagement photos here; family portraits; baby announcements; selfies and snapshots of friends; and countless pictures of the unlikely art destination itself, where the concrete ruins of a 1980s condominium project became an ever-changing canvas for everyone. This iconic piece of weird Austin, which drew about 500 visitors a day, was even immortalized in a virtual reality installation before the Baylor Street site closed five years ago to make way for new condos. But now the site feels frozen in time. Construction started two years ago on the Colorfield, 10 luxury condos perched on the western doorstep of downtown. Yet the structure today looks much like it did in the May 2023 photos from the developer’s website: An impressive concrete shell, stacked three stories above the future lobby, with some wood-framed walls. On several recent visits, I couldn’t find any crews working on the 0.67-acre site, even as the project’s website promises the multimillion-dollar condos would be move-in ready in 2023. I’ve heard from Austinites wondering: What’s happening with the redevelopment of the old graffiti...