JE Dunn Gets Permit for Austin Convention Center Area 3 Building

The City of Austin issued a building permit on Oct. 19 for an 84,967 sq ft, five-story building at 500 E 3rd St downtown, the next construction package in the city’s ongoing Convention Center redevelopment. The permit lists the work as “Area 3” new construction, with JE Dunn Construction as general contractor of record.

Why it matters

JE Dunn’s own announcement says it is paired with Turner Construction in a joint venture serving as construction manager at risk on the Austin Convention Center Department’s redevelopment. Permit 2026-137245 BP, applied for April 3 and issued this week, is one of four sibling permits (2026-137243 through 2026-137246 BP) as the project moves through building packages. The project is publicly owned, which is why no private sponsor appears on the permit.

The numbers

The permit’s own declared valuation is $418,582,000, a number the city’s building-permit dataset repeats word for word across each Area 3 sibling permit rather than pricing this building segment on its own. The building-level valuation field reads $1. Spread over this 84,967 sq ft building alone, the figure would be about $4,930 per sq ft, so it is a project-wide total carried on every related filing, not this permit’s standalone cost. JE Dunn’s announcement of the joint venture’s selection described a $1 billion redevelopment. The design team is a joint venture of LMN Architects and Page Southerland Page. The permit expires April 18, 2027, if work has not progressed to its next inspection milestone.

What’s next

Expect additional sibling permits under the same master permit number as the redevelopment’s remaining building packages clear plan review; each will likely carry the same project-wide valuation rather than its own figure, so later permits should not be read as new cost escalation. For more Austin construction activity, see the Austin market page and the Swinerton permit for McCann Drive issued the same week.