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New Austin-centric boutique hotel on track for 2022 opening despite contractor’s bankruptcy
Despite the well-publicized bankruptcy filing of the general contractor, the developer of the Hyatt Centric Austin boutique hotel vows the property will open as scheduled next year.
Construction startup Katerra, whose North American headquarters is in Houston, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection June 6 — five days after news reports indicated the company was shutting down most of its U.S. operations.
Katerra, general contractor for the Hyatt Centric Austin, recently notified key stakeholders that it is “demobilizing” many of its U.S. projects. But the company didn’t say whether the downtown Hyatt property was one of those projects.
However, McWhinney, the Denver-based developer of the Hyatt Centric Austin, says it “remains committed” to opening the Congress Avenue hotel in early 2022.
“The construction team remains in place, along with our trade partners, and collectively we are committed and actively engaged to keep the project on schedule, and we do not expect any significant delay,” Don Larsen, executive vice president of construction management and project delivery at McWhinney, says in a statement provided to CultureMap.
Construction on Austin’s first Hyatt Centric hotel started in November 2019. The 31-story, 246-room property is being developed at Congress Avenue and Eighth Street by McWhinney, in tandem with Hyatt Hotels and Nelsen Partners.
Features of the hotel include:
- 4,450 square feet of ground-floor restaurant and entertainment space.
- Second-floor bar.
- Eighth-floor outdoor lounge and bar.
- 3,000 square feet of meeting space.
- 1,400-square-foot presidential suite.
- “Austin boho chic” interior design.
- Collection of curated art from local artists.
- No parking garage.
