Near Guadalupe St & W 24th · adjacent to UT AustinCoordinates 30.282907, -97.737603Tupll zone B-AUS-01
A dense, young, renter-run student district wrapped around the University of Texas.
Ellsworth Kelly’s “Austin”, a nearby UT campus landmarkAustin Building Interior Starburst 2018, Larry D. Moore, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
How to use this report
A Tupll Area Report is a field guide to the character and operating environment around a location, not a revenue calculation or a site evaluation. Measured figures come straight from cited public datasets; Interpretations are Tupll's labeled reading of them, and neither is a site-specific revenue forecast.
Geographies used
~1-mi core character & businesses
~3-mi context ring
ZIP 78705, demographics
Austin metro, benchmark
Different figures describe different footprints. Each stat is tagged with the one it was measured on.
Street-level views from around the district, its shops, streets and towers.
Guadalupe Street shops near UT West Mallstorckmanc / Mapillary, CC BY-SA 4.0Tree-lined street with Skyloft tower nearbystorckmanc / Mapillary, CC BY-SA 4.0Tree-lined residential street with parked carsstorckmanc / Mapillary, CC BY-SA 4.0Street view of West Campus high-rise buildingsstorckmanc / Mapillary, CC BY-SA 4.0
How the area behaves
Each figure is tagged with what it measures and the geography it was measured on.
52%
of residents (age 1+) lived in a different home a year ago
MeasuredZIP 78705 · ACS 2024
InterpretationExceptional residential mobility (87% of homes are rented). The resident pool refreshes rapidly, so businesses must repeatedly introduce themselves to new cohorts. The wider customer base may also include continuing students, staff, commuters and visitors.
Median age 21
median age of residents, vs Greater Austin 36
MeasuredZIP 78705 vs metro
InterpretationA full generation younger than the metro, the clearest signature of a student core, and it drives the food-and-nightlife mix below.
$32,380
median household income, vs Greater Austin ~$100k
MeasuredZIP 78705 vs metro
InterpretationA student artifact more than a spending-power reading. The real commercial demand comes from the daytime population: roughly 111,966 jobs sit in and around the core (see the daytime economy below), so resident income alone badly understates the area's pull.
33%
of residents (age 1+) came from outside Travis County in the past year
MeasuredZIP 78705 · ACS 2024
InterpretationThe area is continually replenished by newcomers from elsewhere, so accumulated local familiarity with any given business stays low.
The daytime economy & access
Who is in the area by day, and how they get around, a different population than the residents above and the reason a low resident income understates the district.
~111,966
jobs located in and around the core
Measuredtracts over ~1-mi core · LODES 2022
InterpretationA very large daytime inflow. Commercial demand here is driven by workers and students arriving each day far more than by resident households.
~11×
more jobs than employed residents
Measuredtracts over ~1-mi core · LODES 2022
InterpretationOverwhelmingly a workplace-and-campus district: roughly 111,966 jobs against 10,238 employed residents.
18.8/20
EPA National Walkability Index, “Most walkable”
Measuredblock group · EPA
InterpretationAmong the most walkable block groups in the country, so pedestrian access and sidewalk visibility carry unusual weight.
124
transit stops within 1 mile
Measured~1-mi core · OpenStreetMap
InterpretationDense transit and foot access reinforce a walk-and-transit customer pattern over car trips.
Top daytime employment: Public administration 27%, Education 21%, Professional & technical 14%, Health care 9%. Source: U.S. Census LEHD LODES 2022. Geography note: census tracts overlapping the ~1-mi core (n=8), a broader footprint than the 1-mile circle, so treat these as the area's daytime job base rather than an exact in-circle count.
What kind of place it is
The commercial DNA of the ~1-mile core, by share of mapped locations.
36%20%16%13%
400 mapped businesses, services, amenities & civic locations within the 1-mile core ~1-mi core
OSM record completeness: 95% of included locations carry a name; 33% list opening hours. These describe the mapped records, not the share of all real-world locations OpenStreetMap has captured.
Measured Food & nightlife is the single largest category; almost nothing mapped is industrial. Interpretation A consumption-and-nightlife economy that runs on people showing up, daytime and evening foot traffic rather than production.
How the area appears to be changing
Qualitative interpretation · Confidence: Moderate
Read from current building activity, business density and housing mix, a present-day interpretation rather than a measured trend. A time-series is not yet wired in.
Direction
DecliningStagnantSteadyRising
A categorical read from current signals, not a computed score.
Development stage
EmergingMaturingEstablished
A fully built-out, entrenched district, still adding high-rise housing at the margin.
Commercial stability
FragileVariableResilient
Demand is anchored by a large, durable university enrollment base, so the area absorbs individual-business churn. Caveat: it leans on a single driver (UT), a concentration risk.
221 new-residential-construction permits issued in ZIP 78705 since mid-2022, and 839 permits of all types in the last 12 months. City of Austin.
Operating implications
Conditions an operator would plan around, drawn from the measured data above. These describe the place, not a recommendation, a forecast, or a revenue estimate for any specific business.
Pedestrian access likely matters more
The district's density, an EPA walkability score of 18.8/20 (among the nation's most walkable), and university-adjacent form favor locations with strong sidewalk visibility over a large parking footprint.
Demand likely follows the academic calendar
Expect to test for material differences among fall, spring, summer and move-in / move-out periods; a plan assuming flat year-round demand would likely misjudge both peaks and troughs.
Demand comes largely from the daytime population
Resident income (~$32k) sits well below the metro, but roughly 111,966 daytime jobs sit in and around the core. A plan leaning on resident household spending would likely misread the area; demand here comes substantially from workers and students by day.
Parking & pickup may create friction
Dense residential streets with limited off-street parking can make customer parking, curbside pickup, deliveries and rideshare staging real constraints, worth investigating at the specific parcel level.
High resident turnover
With a majority of residents moving each year, the resident pool refreshes rapidly; reaching each incoming cohort is likely a recurring task, not a one-time launch.
Distinct demand states
Class hours, evenings and the reduced-population summer are likely to behave as different demand states an operator would staff and stock for differently.
Data quality & limitations
Labels:Measured = direct from a cited dataset; Interpretation = Tupll's labeled reading of that data.
Sources: demographics and mobility from the U.S. Census (ACS 2024 5-year); businesses, amenities and civic locations from OpenStreetMap.
Geography: resident demographics use ZIP 78705, which closely matches the West Campus residential neighborhood; the commercial mix and walkability use the ~1-mile core, and daytime jobs the tracts overlapping it. A 1-mile-radius demographic aggregation was tested but blends in the campus and wealthier adjacent tracts, so ZIP 78705 is the more faithful residential geography here.
Time: ACS is the latest release only, so this is a snapshot, not a measured multi-year trend. The direction read is a present-day interpretation.
Coverage: OpenStreetMap tagging and completeness vary, so a mapped point is not a verified storefront. Daytime employment (LODES) is reported for the tracts overlapping the core, a broader footprint than the 1-mile circle.
Imagery: street-level photos are from Mapillary (CC BY-SA 4.0) with per-image attribution; the hero image is a nearby UT campus landmark (CC BY 4.0).
Tupll characterizes areas, never a specific parcel, listing, or building. These figures describe the neighborhood around a point. They carry no revenue projection and are not an investment recommendation.
Evaluate this location's revenue potential
This report shows the area's character. A full Tupll evaluation fuses it with your own locations and sales to predict revenue for this specific site, the one number this free report can't produce, by design.
