As Austin’s SoCo District Grows, Is It Losing Its ‘Weird’?

It’s often hard for shop owners to stay afloat against an incoming tide of big corporations, said Brandon Hodge, the president of the South Congress Merchants Association.

“The story is always the same,” said Mr. Hodge, who owns the Big Top Candy Shop and Monkey See Monkey Do novelty shop. “The scrappy locals go into a run-down area, they take it over, they rebuild it into a destination area that’s attractive.”

But the quirky ambience on the grand avenue doesn’t last long, he added: “It becomes the target for developers with big money.”

South Congress has emerged as one of the premier retail streets in the country, Amar Lalvani, executive chairman of Standard International, said in an email. Standard’s sister company, the Bunkhouse Group, operates four boutique hotels in the corridor.

“It’s where brands put shops because of the cachet Austin has and, in particular, South Congress itself,” he added.

Ms. Lambert founded Bunkhouse in 2006 after she opened Hotel San José. In 2015, Standard bought a majority stake, and Ms. Lambert left, later becoming a partner at MML. Today, MML and the Bunkhouse team are both heavily engaged in the Austin hospitality industry, working one floor apart in an office building on South Congress.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/21/business/austin-soco-south-congress.html