The Nursery, the Drugstore and the Church: West Lynn's Next Chapter Starts in January

Three of the best-known buildings on West Lynn Street have been quiet this fall. Sledd Nursery held its final sale in May. St. Luke United Methodist Church closed in 2024. Nau's Enfield Drug has sat shuttered behind its sign and mural for years. All three now have plans on file, and two of them list construction start dates in the first fifteen days of 2027.

Sledd keeps its name. St. Luke's keeps its sanctuary. Nau's keeps its mural and storefront canopy. The church and the drugstore list start dates two weeks apart, and the restaurant on the nursery site is due within the same stretch, yet the last of the three finishes about two years after the first. A short walk along West Lynn this winter is the last look at the street as it stands now.

The calendar on file

These are the dates in each project's filings and the latest reporting:

1. January 1, 2027. The renovation of the former St. Luke's at 1308 West Lynn is scheduled to begin, according to its Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation filing.
2. January 15, 2027. Construction of The Westlyn on the Nau's site is scheduled to begin, according to its own TDLR record.
3. July 31, 2027. The church renovation is scheduled to be finished, with First Light Books aiming to open in fall 2027.
4. 2027 to 2028. The window the Austin American-Statesman's Clarksville project tracker gives for the Greek restaurant on the Sledd site.
5. January 15, 2029. The Westlyn's planned completion date.

From the first start to the last finish is two years. The fastest of the three projects is the one with the least new construction.

Sledd keeps its name, and its plants

James and Melissa Sledd founded their nursery at 1211 West Lynn in 1977, and it ran on that corner for almost 50 years. McGuire Moorman Lambert Hospitality bought the property. As the Statesman reported in May, the group plans its first Greek restaurant there.

Co-founder Larry McGuire shared only a few details with the paper. The restaurant will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. It will carry the Sledd name, which MML licensed from the family, and its design will include an abundance of live plants as a nod to the nursery.

The restaurant joins two MML places directly across the street, Jeffrey's and Josephine House. The group also runs Clark's, Pecan Square Cafe, Howard's, Rosie's and Swedish Hill at Sixth and Blanco. In May, McGuire estimated 12 to 18 months to finish. Community Impact repeated that window in July. That puts the likely opening somewhere between spring 2027 and late 2027, which fits the Statesman tracker's 2027 to 2028 range.

The church keeps its sanctuary, at its current height

St. Luke's had been part of Old West Austin and Clarksville since 1958. After 66 years on West Lynn, it closed in 2024. According to Hoodline, citing earlier Statesman reporting, Graham Brown Consulting bought the property for just over $4.2 million, and its offer was picked from 18 bids.

The rezoning came first. On April 9, 2026, the Austin City Council passed Ordinance 20260409-053. It changed the 1308 West Lynn and 1611 West 14th Street parcels from multifamily zoning to commercial mixed-use districts, with conditional overlays on both tracts. The Old West Austin Neighborhood Association supported the request, and so did city staff and the Planning Commission.

The plan keeps the sanctuary and does not raise its height. Inside, First Light Books will open a bookstore with a café serving coffee, light fare, beer and wine. Public hours in the proposal run from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. The renovation covers 3,505 square feet and is budgeted at $450,000. First Light's original shop opened on August 19, 2023, in a former post office at 4300 Speedway in Hyde Park. Co-owner Taylor Bruce explained the plan in a press release quoted by the Statesman in October:

"At its core, First Light is about bringing vitality to a neighborhood. In our three plus years in Hyde Park, we've found that books, coffee and wine, a shady courtyard and a beautiful shop can open real connections between people."

Of the three projects, this one has the shortest schedule. The sanctuary is already standing, and the filed renovation timeline runs seven months.

Nau's keeps its mural, its sign and its canopy

The Nau's site will change the most. Zydeco Development Corp. bought the former Nau's Enfield Drug property in 2023. Its project page describes The Westlyn as a luxury mixed-use building with 27 residences and retail at 1111 West Lynn, designed by Miro Rivera. The state filing lists an estimated cost of $70 million. It covers roughly 102,878 square feet of residential space and amenities, 13,421 square feet of tenant space and 48,797 square feet of structured parking.

The Historic Landmark Commission reviewed the project in December 2024, and its review shows which parts of the old building stay.

• The Daniel Johnston mural and the north brick wall stay where they are. Steel supports and a temporary slab will hold them in place while the new building goes up around them.
• The West Lynn facade gets rebuilt with matching materials and window patterns, and the canopy is rebuilt too.
• The historic-age signage stays.
• A five-story mixed-use building rises behind it. It has shops facing West Lynn, homes facing Eason Street, and a roof deck.
• Street trees and low planters replace the parking lots.

The review also says the new building wraps around the existing house at 1101 West Lynn, with outdoor seating terraces linking the two. That house is now Medici Roasting's West Lynn café. For 2027 and 2028, the coffee stop at the south end of this block sits next to the busiest construction site on the street.

What stays open while the sites get built

With the three landmarks on different schedules, the businesses that never closed will keep the street going through 2028. Here is what each one listed as of this fall:

Josephine House also runs happy hour Tuesday through Friday from 3 to 5 p.m. and a Monday steak frites dinner from 4 to 10 p.m. Jeffrey's runs its lounge happy hour all night on Mondays.

West Lynn is also only part of what's changing in the area. The same Statesman tracker, last updated October 15, lists the Sixth & Blanco development as under construction with completion expected in 2027. It puts the Townlake YMCA redevelopment's groundbreaking in 2028. Even so, the block around West 12th has the tightest schedule. Two filed start dates fall two weeks apart, a bookstore is set to open by fall, and a restaurant should follow within the next year or so. The new building around the Nau's mural is due in January 2029.

If you own on or near West Lynn and want to know how this two-year construction calendar affects your plans, Cord Shiflet Group follows each of these filings closely and is glad to talk it through. Work with Cord.