School cooks up lease for 50,000 square feet.(Texas Culinary Academy leases business park space)(Brief Article)

What will be Texas' first Le Cordon Bleu-approved cooking school has signed a lease for 50,000 square feet in Northwest Austin business park.

The Texas Culinary Academy is expected to begin classes Jan. 7. at its new space in The Domain, a 235-acre, multiuse park on the former IBM Corp. campus north-west of Braker Lane and Burnet Road.

Harvey Giblin, president of the Texas Culinary Academy, says the school will open a restaurant with seating for as many as 100 on the site to give students experience working in all aspects of the restaurant business.

"The biggest thing that the public and the city of Austin will benefit from ... is the addition of the fine-dining restaurant," Giblin says. "It will be on-site, and that will be one of the capstone …