Willie Nelson played the “Austin City Limits” pilot in 1974, and when the long-running public TV music show unveils its new studio in 2010, he’ll be a co-owner of the place.
Nelson and nephew Freddy Fletcher will be partners in the studio and nightclub project with Austin-based majority owner Stratus Properties Inc.
Stratus will build the space as part of a $225 million project that will include a 35-story tower with 200 luxury condominiums atop a 250-room W Hotel; a new home for the Austin Children’s Museum; and shops and restaurants.
Unofficially dubbed Austin City Limits Studio Theater, the $15 million, 2,000-capacity venue will serve as a soundstage about 40 nights a year when KLRU’s “Austin City Limits” tapes. It will transform into a musically diverse House of Blues-style club on other nights.
Groundbreaking for the development is scheduled for next summer.
“It’s very exciting to be in on something from the ground up,” Fletcher said. “When I brought the idea to Willie a few years ago, he loved it.”
Nelson, 73, released his latest album, “Songbird,” on Lost Highway Records in October. His hits include “Georgia on My Mind,” “On the Road Again” and “City of New Orleans.”
The new venue is expected to raise the music show’s profile and provide an entertainment attraction in a venue that will hold more than five times the audience the show can accommodate in its existing cramped quarters on the University of Texas at Austin campus.
West Hollywood, Calif.-based architectural firm Rios Clementi Hale Studios will design the interior.
“What I liked about Rios Clementi is that they’re interested in being respectful to the long history of ‘Austin City Limits,’ ” said Beau Armstrong, chief executive of Stratus, which last year won a bid to buy the vacant downtown property from the city of Austin.
Plans call for a gallery filled with photographs of past shows and a store to sell “ACL” souvenirs and memorabilia.
Armstrong said his development team, which has scouted similar-sized venues such as the Joint in Las Vegas and the Nokia Theater in New York, has been advised by Live Nation, a concert giant. Live Nation recently acquired House of Blues for $350 million.
Armstrong said he is close to reaching an agreement with a major concert promoter to operate the venue, but he declined to name it.