AUSTIN | Project Updates Thread Part II

[Mopacs]

Originally Posted by StoOgE

I think we'll get some of both - Austin is turning into a hot enough market that some of our early 2000's (and earlier) builds will likely be on the chopping block for tear-downs at some point.

The Courtyard/Residence Inn hotel on E 4th could be a good candidate for that.

[Echostatic]

Originally Posted by austlar1

What is the current hotel room count for downtown Austin, including campus area hotels? Seems like there are so many new hotels.

Alright, time to start counting. Here's a rough proxy for "Downtown Area and Campus Area" hotels, broken into 5 subdivisions: River South, West, Campus, Inner East, and Downtown.



River South Hotels:

• The Carpenter Hotel: 93 rooms
• Extended Stay America Hotel - Downtown - Town Lake: 130 rooms
• Embassy Suites by Hilton Austin Downtown South Congress: 262 rooms
• Hyatt Regency Austin: 448 rooms

River South Room Total: 933

West Hotels:

• Brava House: 5 rooms

West Room Total: 5 yes, that's really it...

Campus Hotels:

• Hilton Garden Inn Austin University Capitol District: 214 rooms
• Hampton Inn & Suites Austin @ The University/Capitol: 137 rooms
• Hotel Ella: 47 rooms
• The Otis Hotel, Autograph Collection: 191 rooms
• AC Hotel Austin-University: 156 rooms
• AT&T Hotel & Conference Center: 297 rooms
• Moxy Austin - University: 162 rooms
• Rodeway Inn University/Downtown: 50 rooms

Campus Room Total: 1,254

Inner East Hotels:

• Mint House at The Hatchery: 30 rooms
• East Austin Hotel: 75 rooms
• Super 8 by Wyndham Austin Downtown/Capitol Area: 60 rooms

Inner East Room Total: 165

Downtown Hotels:

• Austin Proper Hotel: 244 rooms
• W Austin: 251 rooms
• JW Marriott Austin: 1,012 rooms
• The LINE Austin: 428 rooms
• Hyatt Place Austin Downtown: 296 rooms
• Hampton Inn & Suites Austin-Downtown/Convention Center: 209 rooms
• Four Seasons Hotel Austin: 294 rooms
• Austin Marriott Downtown: 613 rooms
• Fairmont Austin: 1,048 rooms
• Kimpton Hotel Van Zandt: 319 rooms
• Homewood Suites by Hilton Austin Downtown: 150 rooms
• Holiday Inn Austin-Town Lake: 323 rooms
• Hotel ZaZa Austin: 159 rooms
• tommie Austin: 193 rooms
• Thompson Austin: 229 rooms
• The Westin Austin Downtown: 366 rooms
• Courtyard by Marriott Austin Downtown/Convention Center: 270 rooms
• Residence Inn by Marriott Austin Downtown/Convention Center: 179 rooms
• Hilton Austin: 801 rooms
• Hilton Garden Inn Austin Downtown/Convention Center: 254 rooms
• Canopy by Hilton Austin Downtown: 140 rooms
• The Stephen F Austin Royal Sonesta Hotel:190 rooms
• Aloft Austin Downtown: 278 rooms
• Element Austin Downtown: 144 rooms
• The Driskill, in the Unbound Collection by Hyatt: 189 rooms
• Omni Austin Hotel Downtown: 393 rooms
• Holiday Inn Express & Suites Austin Downtown - University: 171 rooms
• Hotel Indigo Austin Downtown - University: 134 rooms
• La Quinta Inn by Wyndham Austin Capitol / Downtown: 152 rooms
• Hyatt House Austin / Downtown: 190 rooms
• Sheraton Austin Hotel at the Capitol: 367 rooms
• DoubleTree Suites Downtown Austin Hotel: 350 rooms

Whew.
Downtown Room Total: 10,336

Downtown and Campus Area Hotels Room Total: 12,693

[We vs us]

Well done! Great list!

There’s a whole developing cluster of airport hotels that take part in the largest city events…but for our purposes probably best left out.

[austlar1]

Great list. That is a LOT of hotel rooms. At just 60% occupancy that would put an additional 8,000 or so folks overnight inside of that relatively small area in addition to local residents. Makes for a very busy central city. I do wonder how these rooms stay occupied day after day. Has convention and visitor traffic rebounded from the Covid crisis? Has business travel resumed on a large scale? Maybe someone knowledgeable about the local hotel market could provide some information.

[dilliam]

Originally Posted by Mopacs

The Courtyard/Residence Inn hotel on E 4th could be a good candidate for that.

god, please let this one be first to go.

[drummer]

Here’s How Austin’s Mexican American Cultural Center Plans To Double in Size

The Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center (ESB-MACC) at 600 River Street is the gem of downtown Austin’s Rainey Street neighborhood, a stunning work of Mesoamerican-inspired modernism designed by the late Mexican architect Teodoro González de León working alongside Hispanic-owned local studio CasaBella Architects. It’s reflective of the neighborhood’s rapidly-fading history as a working-class Mexican American enclave, and as such will always represent much more than a building to members of this community — but that building isn’t completely finished.

https://austin.towers.net/[email protected]

[We vs us]

Originally Posted by austlar1

Great list. That is a LOT of hotel rooms. At just 60% occupancy that would put an additional 8,000 or so folks overnight inside of that relatively small area in addition to local residents. Makes for a very busy central city. I do wonder how these rooms stay occupied day after day. Has convention and visitor traffic rebounded from the Covid crisis? Has business travel resumed on a large scale? Maybe someone knowledgeable about the local hotel market could provide some information.

So -- business travel and group bookings are both currently in recovery. Things have been slowly but steadily improving up till omicron hit, which was a pretty profound rough patch. That said, it wasn't as rough as the delta rough patch, leading most of us to believe that business travelers and group attendees are at heart committed to traveling, and we really are still on an upward swing. Current projections put both group and BT as fully back to 2019 levels by mid 2024, but that's a very fluid forecast. If omicron ends up being the last major wave, we could see things really roar back much more quickly. The demand is definitely there. Of course if that's not the case and we do have another wave . . . hard to say what will happen to our momentum.

The convention center is a perennial problem for Austin, too. Not news to our forum, but it always has to be repeated in public so that people don't start listening that quack from San Antonio. We're so exceptionally small that we're about to fall out of the comp set of cities we regularly go up against, as all of them continue to renovate and outpace us -- again.

The renovation process is creeping along and last I heard, the hope was we'd have an RFP and approval to move forward from Council sometime this year. At this point, the CC folks are thinking in terms of SXSW increments -- if we can't start demo immediately after SXSW 2024, then we'll almost certainly wait till after SXSW 2025. The awful part is they estimate a 4 year construction process -- so even if 2024 is a go, we wouldn't have a center again until 2028. That's just . . .tragic. My hotel is doing revenue analyses about the potential impact of not having a Center for an extensive period of time and . . . it's not pretty.

That said, business is still booming, and tourists/leisure travelers are leading the way. At the most recent Austin Hotel and Lodging Assoc luncheon, one of the Visit Austin honchos made an interesting point -- turns out that even with our smaller center, the Visit Austin sales team was having a difficult time pulling together enough rooms to support convention center groups. All the big houses have enough in-house business and leisure compression that their participation is much lower than in the past.

To me this suggests that when the Center finally gets the green light to reboot (and nearly double in size!) we'll need even more rooms to support it. I'd expect another significant group hotel (Marriott Austin Downtown sized or bigger) to go along with it. Not as part of the deal, necessarily, but as a move into the market by another player.

[Urbannizer]

Future of El Mercado Uptown uncertain following approval of demolition permit

Nearly five decades of serving frozen margaritas and enchilada plates at 1700 Lavaca Street may be coming to an end in the near future. Finding insufficient support for historic zoning, the Historic Landmark Commission approved an application for 1700 Lavaca Street’s demolition in a 7-2 vote, with commissioners Terri Myers and Ben Heimsath in opposition.

“And another one bites the dust,” remarked a defeated Myers as she tallied up the votes.

Readers may recognize 1700 Lavaca as the home of local restaurant chain and bona fide Austin institution El Mercado, which opened in 1996 following the success of its South First Street location in the 1980s. Longtime Austinites may also recall the building’s stint as Jorge’s Uptown Enchilada Bar, which opened in 1978 and advanced the tradition of Austin Tex-Mex for almost 20 years.

Beyond the general anticipation of more high-rises, it remains unclear what is in store for the new development. As of January, El Mercado owners Gerald Stone and Tony and Denise Villegas were still the site’s officially listed owners, but with a demolition and opportunity for development in the pipeline, the signs point to change.

[MichaelB]

Originally Posted by Urbannizer

Future of El Mercado Uptown uncertain following approval of demolition permit

So sad another neighborhood institution will go away. It's not even that good of food.... the cultural and architectural flavor was more important.

[myBrain]

Originally Posted by MichaelB

So sad another neighborhood institution will go away. It's not even that good of food.... the cultural and architectural flavor was more important.

Yeah this is a bummer. Particularly given all of the other underused sites in the vicinity and the fact that we'll most likely be getting some afterthought architecture here. I actually like this little corner of town, with Arturo's, Dive Bar, El Mercado, Clay Pit, Sushi Junai, etc., and I do want to see development bring in more foot traffic to help sustain these businesses and better connect campus to downtown, but couldn't we start with the parking garages first (yes, I know, they're owned by the state - i'm just venting)

[StoOgE]

Yeah - this one feels kind of crappy especially given how great the texture of that block is - it really feels like a hidden little gem. ESPECIALLY considering how much absolute crap and state-owned surface parking lots are in the area.

[MichaelB]

Originally Posted by myBrain

Yeah this is a bummer. Particularly given all of the other underused sites in the vicinity and the fact that we'll most likely be getting some afterthought architecture here. I actually like this little corner of town, with Arturo's, Dive Bar, El Mercado, Clay Pit, Sushi Junai, etc., and I do want to see development bring in more foot traffic to help sustain these businesses and better connect campus to downtown, but couldn't we start with the parking garages first (yes, I know, they're owned by the state - i'm just venting)

Yep... you get it.
My number one concern is the race to infill and not have demand create need to better architecture.
it didn't help that Dog and Duck was replaced with a 'dead block". ie, the court house that has no business and will be empty in the evening.
The new condo will help offset that a bit I hope.
Next to go will probably Dive Bar and Arturos. The owners are now the Children on the man who owned it for years. They have no interest in the property other than profit. ( unlike their dad) So I'm sure there are just waiting for the right moment to sell.

[kingkirbythe....]

Notice Anything Different About These Two Corners in Downtown Austin?

https://austin.towers.net/notice-any...wntown-austin/

You’ll find towers in various stages of planning or building on corners throughout downtown Austin, but two really stand out this month as signs of upcoming change — the southeast corner of West Fifth and Colorado Streets; and the southeast corner of West Sixth and Guadalupe Streets. Let’s hike down there and see what’s cooking.

[The ATX]

A tower crane license agreement was filed for two tower cranes to build a multi-family project called Windsor Park Towers. It maps to the SE corner of the I-35 and US290 interchange.

https://abc.austintexas.gov/public-s...rtyrsn=3033211

[The ATX]

This is the lovely location of the Windsor Park Towers:

[clubtokyo]

Omg that corner needs to be redeveloped so badly.

[We vs us]

Yeah it's a wasteland that needs to be developed, stat. But I also feel for the eventual residents of Windsor Park Towers -- they'll be looking out at one of the busiest cloverleaves in the entire metro highway system.

Yay. Scenic views.

[The ATX]

I didn't remember this project, so I searched for permits. Here's the approved Plan Review with plenty of elevations. There's an East Tower & a West Tower. But the "Towers" are only five floors. Anyway, there will be homes for a lot of people in Central Austin on a spot where there are currently zero albeit for a few tents maybe.

https://abc.austintexas.gov/attachme...lWawEGTwYds6gv

[drummer]

Originally Posted by kingkirbythe....

Notice Anything Different About These Two Corners in Downtown Austin?

https://austin.towers.net/notice-any...wntown-austin/

You’ll find towers in various stages of planning or building on corners throughout downtown Austin, but two really stand out this month as signs of upcoming change — the southeast corner of West Fifth and Colorado Streets; and the southeast corner of West Sixth and Guadalupe Streets. Let’s hike down there and see what’s cooking.

From the article:

Potentially completed by 2024, the project’s [415 Colorado Tower] set to bring 110,000 square feet of offices beneath 328 apartments to the site — and yes, as we were happy to confirm last month, the building has been redesigned to include retail space, making the future of this corner much more interesting for those of us who don’t live or work there.

[Mopacs]

Originally Posted by The ATX

This is the lovely location of the Windsor Park Towers:

Once upon a time that was home to a Night Hawk restaurant and later a Texas Land and Cattle steakhouse, as seen from that dilapidated sign. I didn't realize they had demolished the building.