AUSTIN (KXAN) — The City of Austin is considering converting the former downtown Health South facility into a temporary homeless shelter.
In a city memorandum sent on Tuesday, staff members provided their “best estimates on costs for such a conversion and an updated timeline” for the project.
That estimate? Between $2.5-6.6 million.
Staff members also estimated it will take 24-30 months to convert the building for residential use.
The Health South facility is located at Red River Street and East 12th Street, behind the old Brackenridge Hospital and across from the Sobering Center.
The memo explains that staff began working on this cost estimate for the project after a directive from council members at a Jan. 21 work session.
(Table provided by: City of Austin Memorandum)
At that same January work session, they also discussed using the Health South facility for storage for the homeless community.
At the time, the director of Austin Resource Recovery Ken Snipes said that the city hoped to open up that facility for storage in March, but that timeline could be delayed while city staff worked through a fire code compliance issue at the Health South location.
In a November Austin City Council work session, the city announced they would be forgoing its prior plans to create a referral-only homeless shelter in south Austin and instead focus on acquiring hotels to house the homeless.
The South Austin Housing Center was a 1.66-acre property off of Ben White which was expected to cost the city $8.6 million to purchase. Council approved this purchase in June, but had not yet purchased the building.
KXAN is working to get more details on this memo and potential project. This article will be updated with more details throughout the day.
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