The Future of Sixth Street: Wider Sidewalks, More Restaurants?

Parkside's Shawn Cirkiel may soon have more restaurants as neighbors on his stretch of Sixth Street: the city's Downtown Austin Plan calls for widening the sidewalks in order to lure restaurants with outside dining. The overall goal of such a plan is to clean up the street's late-night party image and entice a (presumably older, wealthier) daytime crowd; they also envision the wider sidewalks making it possible to "reduce the need for weekend street closures that impact businesses and encourage negative social behavior."

The plan has not yet been approved and might go in front of the City Council this spring, but it's certainly interesting to envision an Old Pecan Street without hordes of drunken college students roaming around. The question then becomes, though, where will they go if not Sixth Street?

· Building a Better Sixth Street [KXAN]
· Downtown Austin Plan [City of Austin, pdf]
· All Sixth Street Coverage on Eater Austin [-EATX-]

Sixth Street. [Photo: dbaron / Flickr]