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Old Mueller Airport tower goes to birds
Who-hoo-hoo cares?
Updated: Wednesday, 06 Apr 2011, 1:35 PM CDT
Published : Tuesday, 05 Apr 2011, 7:00 PM CDT
AUSTIN (KXAN) - Once upon a time, Austin's Mueller Airport covered more than 700 acres in what is now the center of town. After it moved to the site of the closed Bergstrom Air Force Base on the city's southeastern edge in 1999, the Mueller site was dedicated to a new mixed-use development.
Hangars, terminals and other buildings were demolished to make way for homes, condos, offices, sound stages and stores. The iconic airport tower, unveiled to great fanfare and a speech by then Vice President Lyndon Johnson in 1961, was spared.
As the new neighborhood took shape, residents grew to cherish the building.
"Everyone loves it; it's a landmark and everyone identifies with it," said Leo Lopez, project manager for a planned restoration of the tower by Catellus Development Group , the company overseeing the Mueller development projec t. "I, myself, used to fly in and out of Mueller when it was in use. It's something that's here to stay and we've always planned on it being an integral part of Mueller. We've carefully designed the development that we do around it."
Still, as time passed, the building suffered.
"For many years, no one was paying attention to it," Lopez said. "The development that we were doing was a long ways from here and vandals could get near the building without anyone noticing."
Windows were shattered; vandals marked the walls and damaged fixtures; wasps invaded and when they died, floors were littered with their bodies.
"That's quickly changing, you know, with development all around the tower," said Lopez. "Since development has gotten closer to the tower, the amount of vandalism has dropped quite a bit and we've also taken additional security measures to help prevent that. So we think things will calm down quite a bit as you have many more eyes in and around the tower."
And now, after years of neglect, a restoration progress is about to accelerate.
"At this point, we're just trying to restore the tower to its original condition," Lopez said. "Most people know that the tower, for many, many years, was kind of dark and black with a Lexan cover that was placed on it years and years ago, probably in the '70s. We discovered that the original porcelain panels were behind there, so we took the Lexan off and now the tower looks much more like it did when it was dedicated in the '60s.
"We're also replacing all the broken glass and making it look once again like a control tower. We'll also be doing work on the bottom of it and landscaping around the base of it," Lopez said.
All that, Lopez predicts, will be done within two months.
"Part of the plan is to clean up the interior of the tower and make sure that the finishes and so forth are restored," he explained. "But beyond that, there's not a plan for occupancy. It is very challenging: The tower is not designed for accessibility. It's got fire issues, if we were to bring the public into the building. Those are challenges that are hard to overcome because without changing the integrity or the appearance of the building, it's hard to accommodate those things. So at this point, there isn't any specific plan for what the use of the tower will be long term."
Except for the owls, that is. A laborious climb up a long flight of stairs leads to the top floor of the tower, once the sight of the flight control room. The windows have been removed and as a strong March wind blows through, the feathers of a dead barn owl in the corner are blown about. Veteran wildlife rehabilitator Sallie Delahoussaye bent down to pick up the carcass. She turned it over in her hands and rendered her verdict.
"He definitely was attacked," she said. "Poor kid; he was about eight to nine weeks old."
Delahoussaye specializes in birds of prey and she figures the young bird fell victim to a great horned owl, a much larger species, or even an adult barn owl. She's seen the victim before while it still lived, she suspects, on one of several trips to the top of the tower to mark the progress of two breeding pairs of barn owls who were caring for their young. The rest of the owlets just recently flew the nest. Delahoussaye suspected the dead bird was among the last to fledge and found itself without protection.
The rehab expert was called in after neighbors started to worry about the owls they had watched swooping down from the tower to hunt in nearby open spaces that were once part of the airport.
"They prey primarily on rodents, almost exclusively," Delahoussaye said. "One pair was observed to kill 40 mice in 20 minutes when they had a clutch of young. Here they seem to be mostly preying on woodrats, because we're seeing lots of woodrat remains here in the tower. So they're very beneficial to have out there; they're good neighbors.
"They were probably here before because there was a nice open area to hunt. And then once the tower started getting broken into and damaged, they could get into it and they said, 'Hey, here's a great place to set up housekeeping;' so they went for it."
Meanwhile, nearby
residents realized their pets had nothing to fear from the owls.
"A barn owl is not likely to be a problem with kittens or puppies; it's highly unlikely," Delahoussaye said. "A great horned owl, now that's another story. A great horned owl will go after anything that moves that it feels is small enough to take off with. In fact, a great horned will kill a skunk and take it off, so you know it can take a cat or a Chihuahua if they want to. But that's not what we're dealing with here. We're dealing with something that really, ideally wants mice or at most, a rat. They just can't handle bigger prey.
"The undeveloped area at the old airport has been a great hunting ground: open fields to find nice rodents in; a structure to nest in and an open area for hunting has worked out well for them."
But things were changing and the neighbors could see it.
"That's how we learned about the owls," said Lopez. "The neighbors are very quick to let us know of problems or concerns that they have. They let us know that there were owls living out here. They saw construction work happening at the tower and they worried about the welfare of the owls.
"Fortunately, we were able to get the right people involved to help take care of them and keep their lifestyle in the tower as we refurbish it at the same time.
"The owls actually been very tolerant. What we've seen them do while we were under construction, trying to raise young around us was amazing. They're tenacious about it. They can take on quite a bit of disturbance and yet continue to go about their business without much trouble."
Lopez predicts the current construction project on the tower will take only six to eight weeks. Deciding on a use for the inside will take longer, but neighbors are already floating lots of ideas.
"Anything from residences to observation towers to exercise facility, I mean everything across the board," said Lopez. "I'm sure the pressure to figure that out will increase as development around the tower area progresses. So we expect that the conversation will come around much more often that it has in the past."
One thing, though, is certain: The barn owls will have a home in the tower, no matter what else happens.
"We're going to create small openings for the owls," said Wynn Estes, who serves with Delahoussaye on a Travis Audubon Wildlife Habitat Conservation Committee . "I've seen them flying around buildings looking for ways to get in and they have had access to these towers all these years, so I believe they will find our holes. In fact, part of the structure will be sticking out sort of like a landing strip. That's appropriate for the airport. It will be an invitation; plus, they can take off from there. And once they get in, they'll be protected from the elements and have some ventilation."
While it's true that the birds' habitat is slowly shrinking because of the Mueller development, Estes is not worried.
"Even though there will be buildings built here, there should be plenty of mice to support a couple of families of owls here," he said.
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