So Long Slackerville

Local businesses bid farewell to Slackerville, South Austin's funkiest space

Slackerville on South First Street has been sold, and businesses are moving on.

Ready to bid farewell to another of Austin's weird wonders? Slackerville, a funky shopping center home to retro boutiques at 2209 S. First St., has been sold to World Class Capital Group. The developers will transform the offbeat marketplace into a storage facility.

The sale was motivated, perhaps unsurprisingly, by rising property taxes. The center was recently appraised at nearly $1.5 million.

So what becomes of the vibrant merchants occupying the once weird Austin institution? For vintage retailers New Brohemia and Amelia's Retro-Vogue & Relics and essential record store End of an Ear, transition is already underway.

New Brohemia has merged its stock of vintage apparel (originally his and hers) with sister store, New Bohemia, into one store in the Concorde Shopping Center on Airport Boulevard. The Slackerville location closed in July.

Amelia's Retro-Vogue and Relics has gone mobile. With plans to go global with its web presence and two picture-perfect trailers, Dezi (1949 TraveLite) and Ethyl (1959 Airstream), posted off Slaughter Lane, it's easy to keep track of the way-back vintage selection of brooches, bags, and more. Amelia's also has been welcomed into the New Bohemia space and has plans to begin operations on Airport Boulevard by October.

End of an Ear is still doing business as usual in its home in Slackerville, with new releases, sales, and other items of interest announced frequently on social media. The record store will say so long to Slackerville in September. Stay tuned for the anticipated announcement of the new location, rumored to remain down south in a bigger location.

Slackerville will shutter by December; construction for the storage facility begins in February.

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Self-driving Roller Coaster

More self-driving cars expected to roll out in Austin for 2025

Photo courtesy of Waymo via KVUE

Various brands offering self-driving cars are on-and-off in Austin.

Expect to see more self-driving rideshare vehicles, also known as robotaxis, on Austin roads next year.

Robotaxi company Waymo, which you may have already seen on Austin's roads, is partnering with Uber. At some point next year, customers will be able to use the Uber app to call a self-driving ride.

Austin-based company Avride is in the testing phase and plans to roll out its robotaxis next year.

Currently, Volkswagen ADMT and Amazon's Zoox are in the testing phase in Austin, while Hyundai's Motional is in the mapping phase.

Last year, robotaxi company Cruise paused operations in Austin after the California Department of Motor Vehicles revoked the company's permits to operate driverless vehicles in the state. And last week, General Motors said it would no longer fund the company because of the time and resources needed.

This way of getting around has come with its safety concerns and issues. The city is tracking those concerns. According to the Transportation Department, the problems span from blocking the roads and parking in front of people's homes for weeks with lights beaming through their windows, to actual wrecks.

Since July 2023, robotaxis have been involved in 75 incidents. Only 21 of those incidents happened in 2024. It's important to note that Cruise has not been operating in Austin this year.

Since July 2023, driverless rideshare vehicles have been involved in 22 near collisions, eight collisions and seven instances where driverless taxis ignored directions from the Austin Police Department (APD).

According to the data, at least four of those Austin police incidents happened in recent months. The issues varied from driving through police checkpoints, to malfunctioning and getting stuck at an APD road closure near pedestrians, causing safety concerns.

A Waymo spokesperson said their vehicles have gesture recognition capabilities, which they've been training APD officers on using.

As the report shows, sometimes it does not work and Waymo said it is working to improve that. The spokesperson said that as of just last week, Waymo's First Responder Program has been independently verified by TÜV SÜD, making Waymo the first autonomous vehicle (AV) company to receive third-party validation for our emergency response protocols. They also said the data to date indicates the Waymo Driver is already reducing traffic injuries and fatalities in the places where the company currently operates.

Read the full story and watch the video at KVUE.com.

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