Austin American-Statesman photojournalist Jay Janner has been documenting Central Texas for almost 20 years and since 2005, he’s documented Austin’s skyline every fall from the Great Lawn at Zilker Park.
During that year’s Austin City Limits Music Festival, Janner framed a view of the stage on the east end of the grounds, with downtown in the background. Austin’s tallest building that year was the Frost Bank Tower, a structure that was completed in 2004 and stands 516 feet tall. Today, it’s 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 festival attendees kicked up so much dust to the sound of Oasis and Coldplay that the air became difficult to breathe. The next year, sprinklers were installed in Zilker Park to solve this problem. Back then, weekend passes only set you back a cool $105.
Last year, the Independent, a 685 ft residential building known as the “Jenga tower” for its offset 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, towering at 865 feet. But the tallest structure (not just in Austin, but the entire state of Texas) is expected to be the Waterline , a mixed-use 1,022-foot construction on track for completion in 2026 at the corner of East Cesar Chavez and Red River Street.