Austin-American-Statesman photojournalist Jay Janner has been documenting Central Texas for nearly two decades, and every fall since 2005 he has documented the Austin skyline from the Great Lawn in Zilker Park.
During that year’s Austin City Limits Music Festival, Janner sketched a view of the stage on the east side of the site, with downtown in the background. Austin’s tallest building that year was the Frost Bank Tower, a structure completed in 2004 that stands 550 feet tall. Today it is the fifth tallest building in the city and is no longer visible from Zilker Park.
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By the way, 2005 was also the infamous “Dust Bowl” year, when festivalgoers kicked up so much dust to the sound of Oasis and Coldplay that it became difficult to breathe the air. The following year, sprinklers were installed in Zilker Park to solve this problem. At the time, weekend passes only ran $105.
Last year, the Independent, a 650-foot residential building known as the “Jenga Tower” because of its staggered floors, was the city’s tallest building. A 66-story skyscraper at Sixth and Guadalupe is technically the city’s tallest completed structure at the time of this year’s photo, standing 800 feet tall. But the tallest structure (not just in Austin, but in the entire state of Texas) is expected to be the Waterline, a 1,000-foot-tall mixed-use structure slated for completion in 2026 at the corner of East Cesar Chavez and Red River Street.
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This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Downtown Austin’s skyline evolves after every ACL Fest since 2005
