West Lynn's Old Landmarks Are Coming Back on a Schedule, and the Park Is First in Line

Walk West Lynn between Sixth and Twelfth this fall and you'll pass three quiet landmarks within a few blocks. The windows at Nau's Enfield Drug are dark. The plants are gone from Sledd Nursery. The pews have come out of St. Luke United Methodist Church. For most of 2026 the street has looked like it was holding its breath.

Now the plans for all three are public, and they line up in a clear order. Over the next three years West Lynn changes one corner at a time. The first thing scheduled to finish is a public seating area in West Austin Neighborhood Park, not a storefront. The bookstore comes next, then the restaurant, then the mixed-use building at Nau's. The park patio, the bookstore café and the all-day restaurant are each planned around people staying a while.

The order, as of late October 2026

Most of these dates come from state construction filings or from a business telling a reporter what it's aiming for. Projects like these tend to slip. The Sledd timeline already has.

First up: a patio built for grown-ups

The Overlook is a $650,000 renovation of 14,520 square feet in the park's northwest corner. It adds seating areas, landscaping and irrigation, and its filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation lists Oct. 30, 2026 as the completion date. TBG Landscape Architects designed it, and the city's Parks and Recreation Department owns the site. As of the Austin American-Statesman's Old West Austin development tracker update on Oct. 15, the renovation was still due by the end of October.

The Friends of West Austin Park describe the space as a calm, adult-centric place meant to encourage neighbors to talk to each other. That's a different goal from the playground side of the park. According to the group, PARD supports the project but isn't paying for construction. Donations are held by Austin Parks Foundation. The group's donor list includes Austin Parks Foundation, the City Parkland Dedication Program, the Old West Austin Neighborhood Association and The Westlyn.

That last donor ties the timeline together. The project scheduled to finish last on West Lynn helped pay for the one scheduled to finish first.

Next: a bookstore in the sanctuary

St. Luke United Methodist Church announced on Nov. 1, 2024 that it would close at the end of that year, as Austin Current reported. The building sold for just over $4.2 million to Graham Brown Consulting. On Oct. 15, the Statesman reported that First Light Books, the Hyde Park bookstore and café in a former post office at 4300 Speedway, will open its second location there.

The state filing covers a $450,000 remodel of about 3,505 square feet into a bookstore with a coffee shop. Work is scheduled from Jan. 1 to July 31, 2027, and general manager Breezy Mayo told the Statesman the store is targeting a fall 2027 opening. Some coverage places the church in Clarksville. Austin Current notes it sits just outside the Clarksville Historic District, in Old West Austin.

Co-owner Robin Bruce told KUT the bookstore will take the front sanctuary, other businesses will use the back of the building, and the Clarksville store will have a café and more square footage than Hyde Park, which means more titles on the shelves. She explained what drew the team to the building:

"At Clarksville is this church that has been a rich part of the community for decades and decades. It had that combination of incredible old building, great architecture, great bones, in the middle of a neighborhood that's designed for community."

Bruce also hinted to KUT that the church's yearly pumpkin patch could come back. No date has been announced. Since the building is under renovation until mid-2027, fall 2027 is the earliest the hint could come true on that lawn.

Then: the nursery becomes a restaurant across from Jeffrey's

Sledd Nursery sat at 1211 W. Lynn St. for almost 50 years. The Statesman reported in May that James and Melissa Sledd founded it in 1977, that operations wound down in early 2026, and that the final sale came in mid-May. MML Hospitality is turning it into the group's first Greek restaurant. MML co-founder Larry McGuire told the Statesman it will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, carry the Sledd name under a license from the family, and be designed with plenty of live plants.

The timing has moved. In May, McGuire estimated 12 to 18 months. In June, Community Impact listed the opening as spring 2027. The Statesman tracker's Oct. 15 update lists completion as 2027 to 2028, with cost still TBD.

The restaurant will sit across the street from MML's Jeffrey's and Josephine House. That puts three of the group's dining rooms on one short stretch of West Lynn.

Last: Nau's keeps its mural and its neighbor

Nau's Enfield Drug closed in 2023, as Eater Austin reported that March. The planned replacement, The Westlyn, is a five-story mixed-use building with 27 residences and ground-floor retail. Zydeco Development Corporation and Miró Rivera Architects are behind it, and the project is pegged at $70 million. Its state filing projects construction from Jan. 15, 2027 to Jan. 15, 2029. That's a registration schedule, and the developer's own project page still labels it "Planned."

Two parts of the block stay, according to a city Historic Landmark Commission staff report and the Statesman tracker:

• The Daniel Johnston mural and the brick wall it's painted on, preserved in place. The plan also calls for rebuilding the deteriorated storefront and keeping the historic-age signage.
• The 1903 house at 1101 W. Lynn, which the new building wraps around. Medici Roasters operates there and still lists daily hours.

So the coffee shop next door and the mural people stop to photograph are written into the plan to stay. If the filed schedule holds, the corner will be under construction from early 2027 into 2029. During those two years it will sit about two blocks from the bookstore and the restaurant as they open.

What keeps the street going in the meantime

Around the corner on West Sixth, the MML cluster stays open throughout. MML's restaurant listings show Clark's Oyster Bar and Pecan Square Café at 1200 W. 6th St. and Rosie's Wine Bar at 1130 W. 6th St. Swedish Hill's smaller outpost, Little Swedish, is at 1128 W. 6th St. and lists hours of 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. MML says the full-service Swedish Hill will return once its Sixth & Blanco development is done. Sixth & Blanco is a $150 million project with a hotel, dining and residences, and the tracker now lists it for 2027. That means the bakery and the West Lynn bookstore could reopen within months of each other.

November has a few fixed dates worth adding to the calendar while the bigger projects get underway:

1. Friday, Nov. 6. Luminarium, the Pease Park Conservancy's main fundraiser, at Kingsbury Commons.
2. Saturday, Nov. 14. Pease Park's "Lives Remembered" Black-history tour.
3. Sundays, Nov. 15 and Nov. 29. Free visitor hours from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Haskell House, hosted by the Clarksville Community Development Corporation.

The first of the new West Lynn landmarks is due to finish on Oct. 30 at the park on West 10th. The bookstore follows next fall.

If you own on or near West Lynn and want to talk through how these projects could affect your block over the next few years, Austin Home Girls Realty is happy to walk the street with you and share what we're watching. Find Your Austin Home, or just get to know your own a little better, with a neighbor who follows these corners closely.