Waterline

Texas has a new high point, and it’s mixed-use. Waterline rises 1,025 feet over downtown Austin, making it the tallest building in the state and the tallest in the southern US. It topped out in August 2025 and is finishing toward a 2026 opening. KPF designed it for Lincoln Property Company and Kairoi Residential, with HKS as architect of record and DPR Construction building it.

Project Scope

• A 2.7-million-square-foot tower stacking three uses in one structure on a downtown block by Waller Creek.
• 703,000 square feet of Class-AA office across 27 floors, topped by 351 luxury rental apartments on the highest 33 floors.
• A 13-floor, 251-key hotel operated by 1 Hotels, the brand’s first Austin property.
• About 24,000 square feet of ground-floor dining and retail, plus roughly 52,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor amenities.
• Designed by KPF with HKS, built by DPR Construction, civil by WGI.

Why It Matters

Stacking offices, a hotel, and apartments in a single supertall is harder than building three separate towers. Each use wants different floor plates, elevator banks, and mechanical systems, and Waterline threads them into one core, the kind of vertical Tetris that the same architect worked out on New York’s One Vanderbilt. For Austin, the tower is a marker. A city better known for sprawl and tech campuses now has a genuine supertall on its skyline, and a downtown dense enough to justify one.

Project Team & Details