Austin Resource Recovery to buy building to turn into reuse warehouse

Austin nonprofit to buy building for reuse warehouse

On Thursday, City Council voted for Austin Resource Recovery (ARR) to buy a building to turn into a reuse warehouse.

AUSTIN, Texas - On Thursday, City Council voted for Austin Resource Recovery (ARR) to buy a building to turn into a reuse warehouse.

The focus will be to provide furniture to those transitioning out of homelessness, but that could broaden overtime. 

What they're saying:

The building, at 9201 Metric Boulevard, is 13,200 square feet on a 0.985-acre lot. It previously housed a business called Xtreme Xhibits, which is a marketing agency for trade fairs.

"We searched for about two years for this property, and it was kind of based on location, but also the size of the facility, so we have ample room to be able to take furniture and store it," Amy Slagle, assistant director of Austin Resource Recovery said. 

The cost was $4,425,000. Four million of that came from a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant that was awarded in 2023. The rest comes from ARR's operating budget. Discussions on this potential project began in 2020-21. 

The warehouse will accept and redistribute lightly-used furniture that's free to clients. The building still has to be retrofitted. 

"It's minor changes just to get it into the condition we need to be able to set up all the furniture," Slagle said.

Slagle says they plan to open during late summer or fall. They're still finalizing how they'll accept donations. They may also take items that are reusable from their bulk collection routes. 

The city says this supports their waste reduction goals.

"We want to emphasize reuse, and this is a great opportunity for that. Part of our city's climate equity plan is to focus on reuse and not introduce new or raw materials into the stream, so this is a great opportunity to showcase that reusability," Slagle said.

If you're trying to decide to donate at the warehouse or through another nonprofit, Slagle says, "this is helping people that are transitioning out of homelessness have those basic needs and get back on their feet, so I think that's a great point for folks to take into consideration before they donate."

She says this reuse warehouse will be the first of its kind and run by a government entity in Austin. There was a much smaller facility in Austin operated by a non-profit organization about 10 years ago that closed due to insufficient funding.