Hotel Boom Continues
New high-end hotels slated for Austin will add 1,000 rooms to the mix
Austin's hotel boom continues with new projects that will add 1,000 guest rooms to the center of town. Hotel development and operations corporation White Lodging has plans to develop two hotels under the Marriott umbrella, one adjacent to the University of Texas at Austin, the other near the Austin Convention Center.
The development near UT Austin will be a dual-branded Autograph Collection and AC Hotels concept. The 11-story property at the intersection of San Antonio Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard will house two distinct hotels, each with its own lobby, restaurant, bar, and workout facility.
The high-end Autograph Collection will have 191 rooms, a street-level restaurant and bar, walk-up Burger Bar, and rooftop pool. The AC Hotels property — the first for the lifestyle brand in Austin — will offer 156 rooms. Construction is scheduled to start in summer 2017, with an opening date pegged for early 2019.
The downtown Marriott Hotel is slated for the corner of Cesar Chavez and Trinity streets and will feature 615 rooms and 65,000 square feet of flexible space. Highlights include a restaurant and two bars on the ground floor, as well as an outdoor pool and entertainment area on the seventh floor — all of which will be open to guests and locals. A summer 2019 opening is planned.
The new Marriott isn't the company's first concept downtown, nor is it the only hotel popping up near the convention center. Last year White Lodging debuted the massive JW Marriott on Congress Avenue, and a 37-story Fairmont Austin is currently under construction at the corner of Cesar Chavez and Red River streets.