Fire Protection Design Requirements: Waterline, Austin, Texas

Meta Description: Fire protection design for Waterline, Austin's 1,025-ft tower: high-rise sprinkler, standpipe, alarm and smoke control under the 2021 IBC/IFC and NFPA.

Section 1: Project Overview

Waterline is a mixed-use tower under construction at 98 Red River Street in downtown Austin, Texas, on a 3.3-acre site at the corner of East Cesar Chavez Street and Red River Street along Waller Creek and the Waterloo Greenway. The project is co-developed by Lincoln Property Company of Dallas and Kairoi Residential of San Antonio, with DPR Construction as general contractor and Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) as architect. The building broke ground in June 2023 and topped out in August 2025, at which point its 74 stories and roughly 1,025 feet made it the tallest building in Texas. Completion is expected in 2026.

The program of roughly 2.6 million square feet stacks several occupancies in a single structure: about 700,000 square feet of office space on the lower floors, a 251-room hotel (1 Hotel Austin), 352 residential apartments on the upper floors, and roughly 24,000 square feet of ground-level retail and restaurant space. For a fire protection designer, that vertical stack of office, assembly, hotel, and residential occupancies in one supertall high-rise is the defining condition of the project.

Section 2: Fire Protection Challenges Specific to This Project

The most consequential fact about Waterline is its height. Under the 2021 International Building Code adopted by the City of Austin, any building with an occupied floor more than 75 feet above the lowest level of fire department vehicle access is a high-rise and triggers IBC Section 403. At 1,025 feet, Waterline stands more than thirteen times that threshold, and its upper occupied floors are far beyond the reach of aerial apparatus. Suppression, detection, smoke control, and occupant egress all have to function as a self-contained system, because the fire service will fight any upper-floor event from inside the building.

Mixed occupancy compounds the problem. Office (Group B), assembly and mercantile (Groups A and M), and hotel and residential (Groups R-1 and R-2) each carry different sprinkler design densities, alarm notification requirements, and egress assumptions. The transitions between them have to be reconciled through fire-rated separations or a tabulated separated-occupancy design under IBC Section 508. Standpipe and fire pump pressure management is a third challenge: at this height the system must be zoned, with pressure-reducing valves and multiple pump stages to hold residual pressures within NFPA 14 limits at the topmost hose connection without over-pressurizing connections on lower floors. Finally, the Waller Creek and Waterloo Greenway frontage constrains fire department apparatus access and staging on at least one face of the site, which feeds directly into standpipe and fire command center placement.

Section 3: Required Systems and Applicable Codes

Every system below is governed by the 2021 International Building Code and 2021 International Fire Code adopted by the City of Austin (effective September 1, 2021, with local amendments), which in turn reference the NFPA editions shown. Note that Austin regulates buildings through the I-Codes rather than adopting NFPA 101 as the governing life safety code.

Section 4: What Designers Need to Think Through

Beyond sizing each system, the work on a tower like this is in the interfaces. The fire alarm sequence of operations has to drive smoke control, elevator recall, stair pressurization, and HVAC shutdown in a coordinated matrix, and that matrix is what the AHJ and commissioning agent will test. At 1,025 feet, elevator strategy is central: fire service access elevators under IBC Section 3007 and occupant evacuation elevators under Section 3008 change how the alarm system, power, and lobby protection are designed. Circuit pathway survivability for the voice/alarm system under NFPA 72 has to be resolved early, because rerouting survivable risers after framing is costly. Generator sizing and on-site fuel storage must carry every life safety load, including fire pumps, for the required duration. A phased evacuation strategy has to account for hotel guests and residents who shelter in place while a fire floor and the floors above and below are notified first. Each of these decisions should be settled against the City of Austin Fire Protection Criteria Manual amendments, not the base I-Codes alone.

Section 5: How ProTech CDS Approaches Projects Like This

ProTech CDS designs fire alarm, sprinkler, and suppression systems for high-rise and mixed-use projects nationwide. Every package is reviewed by a NICET Level IV principal and stamped by a licensed professional engineer, with PE stamps available in all 50 states. We deliver on a white-label basis, so our drawings and calculations carry your firm's title block and your client relationship stays yours. Our scope is the design and the engineering judgment behind it, coordinated to the adopted code editions and local amendments of the jurisdiction where the project is built.

Section 6: Call to Action

If you are designing or building a high-rise like Waterline and need fire protection drawings and PE-stamped calculations coordinated to the governing codes, start a project with ProTech CDS at lockin.protechcds.com.