Or Rome!

My office has a direct line of sight into the site; there was a little activity yesterday, but nothing today. The Cat is currently in park.

We've had some rain this week. That may be why there has been less or no activity at the site on any given day. The Trail of Lights at Zilker is closed tonight because of minor flooding last night. I suspect it was too muddy in the pit to do any excavating today.

Yeah, there's some construction going on behind us with some new townhomes, and I didn't hear them out there grading it today. It's been beeps and rumbles for the past week or so, but it was quiet today.

The Manchester hating San Diego Reader has an article about the project's financing:

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2...-texas-hotel/#

Good find! I love the lender's frequently used adage,"Befriend the Bewildered". Say what you will about the San Diego Reader's motives, this article contains more information about the hotel project's financing than has appeared anywhere else. Sounds like Baby Doug might have been relegated to window dressing.

I stumbled upon another article about the Manchesters. This one contains a tease of more to come:

"Doug says Manchester is already looking for its next big deal and is in the initial stages on two major deals in Austin."


https://www.bisnow.com/austin-san-an...Project--41030

Also from the article:
Hmm.. Does this mean that he believes that the Hilton isn't enough to serve as one of the three convention center hotels? It is a little less than 1,000 rooms. Will one of the two major deals mentioned above be another 1,000+ room hotel?

Maybe they'll use the old design for the Fairmont. :D

My first thought was that we will get to await a combined total of 6 years to see those other two projects break ground.

Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays to all!

Is it just me or did anyone else notice several wording mistakes in that article?

My question about that comment is with multiple smaller hotels under construction and in the works, do we really need another 1,000+ room hotel? It doesn't specifically say these "two large projects" will be hotel although the overall topic tends to intimate they could be. Maybe it's mixed use.

I know I've been sounding more skeptical lately but after the disappointment with the end result of the Fairmont design, it doesn't give me much incentive to be very hopeful about any other large projects that Manchester could be involved with, not to mention the financial questions being raised. Besides the articles seem to be booster propaganda for Manchester rather than from an independent source. Is this legitimate information being leaked or is it simply smoke being blown out?

My final question is with the size of the Fairmont. The article claims it's the largest Fairmont Hotel in Sq. footage in the world but click on the other article which also discuses the Fairmont and it says it's the second largest. The discrepancies only highlight the sloppiness of the articles. I don't think it's the largest but is it really going to be the second largest?

It's the largest Fairmont in the U.S., and the second largest in the world. That would be source of confusion.

I'm skeptical that Austin could handle another 1,000+ hotel? I think 2 is enough for a good while. Also Happy Holidays to all as well. :)

The project pipeline is too large right now to handle too many more big proposals during the next couple years. But if the CC expansion continues to gather steam we could see another 1,000 room proposal in a few years IMO.

Here's my latest list of Downtown hotel rooms in development. This list doesn't include several boutique hotels in East Austin and SoCo. It will probably take the market a little time to absorb this many rooms coming online in a relatively narrow time frame. But Austin is booming and tourism is growing. So who knows for sure?

http://i1121.photobucket.com/albums/...nt12-15-14.png

Rumor is that Manchester has those 5 parcels behind the IHOP on I35, near the convention center, under contract or is negotiating a contract on them. They are currently dirt parking lots, if I remember correctly.

Not so sure about that. For some info on current owners see my post here:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...&postcount=258

The link you posted just takes me back to SSP's main page.

He also said they could be negotiating for them.

Fixed link:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...&postcount=258