More than 2,160 properties along Austin’s nine major transportation corridors have been tapped for potential partial purchase by the city in its ongoing effort to renovate and enhance the city’s most traversed roads. The 2,166 properties represent those facing the city’s corridors—Airport, North and South Lamar, and Martin Luther King Jr. boulevards; East Riverside and William Cannon drives; Slaughter Lane; Burnet Road; and Guadalupe Street. Although the city could potentially target each property for a partial purchase, city officials in an Aug. 26 memo said they expect to need pieces of only 168 properties, or roughly 8%. The $23 million comes from voter-approved funding from the 2016’s $720 million mobility bond. In the memo, Alex Gale, interim officer for the city’s real estate office, said “no whole property acquisitions are anticipated to be necessary” and that each purchase would only be a part of the property or an easement. He said the majority would be “sidewalk, trail and recreation easements,” and some would be right of way purchases to widen lanes. Gale said the city would have to negotiate purchases with the landowners and that if the city and the property owner could not make a deal, condemnation could be the next step; however, any property seizure by the government would have to come to City Council on a case-by-case basis. Click to read more at www.communityimpact.com.