Austin-based Simmons Vedder & Co. – the developer that withdrew plans for a 1,450-condominium complex in Alamo Heights after community opposition – may be down, but not out: A lawyer representing the firm confirmed the company still plans to expand the existing apartment complex previously eyed for condo development by more than 80 units.

After vocal opposition from residents, the developer on May 16 abandoned its yearlong effort to build condos at the site of the existing Sunset Ridge Apartments just north of the McNay Art Museum. Opposition to the plans mounted for reasons that ranged from projected traffic congestion to sewer and drainage concerns.

The company withdrew its application the day before it was to request a zoning change to raze the 29-acre apartment site to build the condos. The firm had hoped to secure a so-called MF-50 zoning which would have enabled construction of up to 50 condo units per acre.

But attorney Daniel Ortiz of the developer’s locally based land-use law firm, Brown PC, said the company still plans to expand the circa-1920s apartment complex sometime in the future. Under existing zoning, the company is allowed to build 33 units per acre on roughly 25 acres at the site, and another 49 units per acre of the remainder of the tract – an option the company will exercise in the wake of the condo opposition, Ortiz said.

“They will build,” the attorney said. “I don’t know their timetable, and it may not be tomorrow. But eventually, they will build on the property to something more compatible to what the underlying zoning allows for.”

The abandonment of the plans came as some relief to opposing residents, some of whom started petitions against the project. Ortiz said the level of community opposition took Simmons Vedder representatives aback.

“It was a surprise,” the attorney said. “It was the first and only time that, when we face that type of opposition, the answer simply was ‘no,’ ” he added, noting the national scope of Austin-based firm’s real estate holdings. Further causing surprise was that opponents made no allowances for the developer’s careful stewardship of the vintage apartment complex over the years. Throughout its decade-long ownership of the apartments, Simmons Vedder has twice remodeled the property and, at one point, refinanced the landmark, he said.

Ortiz partly attributed opposition to the lack of a final rendering for the project. Also, he said the plans as presented – a condo unit with nearly 1,500 units – was foreboding on its face for some, even though the net gain in residential units would have been just slightly more once the property was built out.

“I think what it boiled down to was a desire from the surrounding community to get a very high level of specificity as to what the development would look like and how it would unfold,” he said. “The amount of detail sought was fairly unrealistic given the stage of development. Just because you can’t show the façade doesn’t mean you can’t show the concepts,” he added, noting visual displays were provided throughout the process.

But he said the looming vision of nearly 1,500 units may have been too hard an obstacle to overcome in the public’s perception: “It was couched more as a zoning change allowing from 324 units, i.e. what there is today to 1,400 units, when in reality, when you look at the entitlements, it’s really a zoning case of 1,000 to 1,400 units,” he said, including the maximum 82 additional units allowed under the existing zoning in that reckoning.

“At the end of the day, it was hard to get over that picture in people’s minds,” he said.

By any calculation, the end result is the same — the sun has set on the Sunset Ridge condo complex, with renewed focus now on modest expansion: “That process concluded obviously with us withdrawing the application,” Ortiz said. “At this point, they (Simmons Vedder) will go back to where they were before.”