Elon Musk's Boring Co. has set its sights on a proposed tunnel under Austin, Texas, on the heels of city officials in nearby Kyle canceling plans to build a pedestrian tunnel in the Central Texas suburb.
The so-called Austin Loop Transportation System, as the project is called, could be built in the Waller Creek area of downtown, according to an application filed with the city of Austin this month.
While the application doesn't mention Boring Co. by name, the company leases about 40,000 square feet in one of two buildings at the address of the applicant, 15709 Impact Way in Pflugerville, Texas. The applicant, Hunter Brauer, is a lead civil engineer at the company, according to his LinkedIn page. Boring Co. representatives did not respond to requests to comment from CoStar News.
The project joins a number of tunnel projects Boring Co. has pursued across the country — though with the exception of a short loop connecting the Las Vegas Convention Center with a nearby casino, none have come to fruition. Austin city officials are reviewing the proposal, which would still need to gain approval from the city council.
In addition to the Las Vegas project, Boring Co. has proposed tunnels for Los Angeles, Miami and San Antonio. Officials in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne, where Boring Co. was originally based, asked the company to remove its hyperloop structure, part of a proposed tunnel system, according to the Los Angeles Times. No progress has been made on a plan to build a hyperloop tunnel in Miami.
In Texas, Boring Co. filed a separate application to build a tunnel system at the Tesla Gigafactory in Austin, and the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority has been considering tunnel-themed transportation system proposed by the company to connect San Antonio International Airport to the city’s Central Business District. Neither of those projects has advanced to a development phase.
Boring Co.’s application to build a tunnel in Kyle, meanwhile, was recently rejected.
A spokesperson for the city of Kyle, about 20 miles south of downtown Austin, confirmed to CoStar News that a proposed pedestrian tunnel to be built under a local subdivision was canceled earlier this month.
“The pedestrian tunnel project has proven to not be viable after Union Pacific Railroad did not approve the proposed tunnel under the railway in August. Since the project cannot proceed without the approval of the railroad, the city of Kyle is no longer pursuing it as an option,” Rachel Sonnier, the city's director of communications, told CoStar News in an email.
The Austin proposal included no public plans, and the location, scope and length of the tunnel were unclear. The Tesla Gigafactory, another Musk venture, is 15 miles away from the Austin Convention Center. Austin-Bergstrom Airport is about 9 miles away. Whether these are among the locations the tunnel would connect to from downtown Austin remains to be seen.
The latest proposal calls for a tunnel near the Austin Convention Center, based on the address listed in the application.
The address listed for the proposed tunnel is 97-1/2 Red River St., across the street from Lincoln Property Co. and Kairoi Residential's Waterline project, which would be the tallest building in the state once completed.