Related Companies has started selling condos at One Lady Bird Lake, its 18-story tower at 125 South First Street on the south shore of Lady Bird Lake. The New York developer and its Austin partner, Christopher Investment Company, are offering 101 homes from one to four bedrooms, with completion targeted for the first quarter of 2028 (via Related Companies).
The site sits between South First Street and South Congress Avenue with about 235 feet of lake frontage and a direct connection to the Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail. Related says the project includes a public lakeside park and a planned boardwalk extension down to the water.
For the construction crowd, the team list is the headline. Texas-based Rogers-O'Brien Construction is the general contractor. Austin's GarzaEMC handled civil engineering and Thornton Tomasetti is the structural engineer. KPF designed the tower, Workshop/APD did the interiors and TBG Partners did the landscape. Wheelock Street Capital, Northwestern Mutual and Avela Real Estate Partners are listed as financial partners.
The building isn't what was first announced for this spot. KPF's own project materials describe an earlier design for the site: a 14-story, roughly 480,000-square-foot Class A office building billed as the first commercial office on the lake, with construction then expected to begin in late 2023. That plan gave way to the residential tower now on the market.
State records give a sense of the job's size. A Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation accessibility filing, registered in December 2023 under the One Lady Bird Lake name, lists the owner as River South Venture LLC in care of Related, KPF as the design firm, and an estimated construction cost of $175 million for 686,334 square feet of new construction at 151 S. First St. That filing estimated a mid-2027 finish; Related's current target is early 2028.
The amenity package is big. A three-story podium holds nearly 30,000 square feet of shared space: a 70-foot pool, a spa with steam room, sauna and cold plunge, a fitness center and yoga studio, co-working rooms, a music room, a podcast studio, a golf simulator and a dog run. Residents park in a multilevel underground garage with EV charging. About 6,000 square feet of ground-floor space is set aside for a full-service restaurant and an all-day cafe.
Unit finishes run to 10-foot ceilings, 8-inch-wide European white oak plank floors, Calacatta marble counters, Sub-Zero appliances, and Lutron and Nest controls. The tower is designed to LEED Silver standards and carries a 2 Star rating from Austin Energy Green Building, the city utility's local rating program.
"Our vision for One Lady Bird Lake from the outset was to create the premier residential building in Austin," said Michael Iannacone, president of Related Texas. KPF design principal Trent Tesch said the team "wanted a tower that would hold a gaze and also give something back to the waterfront."
Sales are being handled by Moreland Properties out of a sales gallery at 401 South First Street, Suite 1175. A separate state filing for that suite, registered as Related RiverSouth, covers a $500,000, 7,000-square-foot interior buildout scheduled for January through April 2026 and lists its inspection as complete. Prices weren't disclosed.
Why it matters for Contractors
With the GC and design team long since named, the structural package is spoken for, but interiors and specialty scopes on a 101-unit luxury condo are a long tail. White oak flooring, stone tops, high-end appliance installs, low-voltage and smart-home controls, pool and spa systems, and landscape work along the trail and park all have to get done before a 2028 turnover. Subs who want in should be talking to Rogers-O'Brien now.
The sales launch also points to post-closing work. Owners of finished luxury condos can bring in their own remodelers and smart-home installers once they close, and condo boards tend to need maintenance contractors who can work within building rules. Small shops that already serve downtown and South Congress high-rises are the ones best placed for that.