Hotel/condo tower set for Seaholm makeover
Work could begin next summer on 163-room hotel to open in 2009.
By Shonda Novak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, September 22, 2006
A 22-story hotel and condominium tower could rise above the smokestacks at the former Seaholm Power Plant by 2009.
The project is the first part of a multimillion-dollar plan to transform the Seaholm site into vibrant district with shops, offices, housing, entertainment and cultural attractions.
Jeff Trigger, former managing director of the historic Driskill Hotel, will run the 163-room hotel, tentatively called the Seaholm Plaza Hotel.
Trigger, who recently formed a hotel management and consulting company, also will oversee the construction, management and operations of the hotel, which will be built just north of the former power plant.
He emphasized that the hotel "won't be part of a branded chain, or managed by an out-of-state corporation."
Work could start next summer, with the opening planned for spring 2009.
Austin-based Centro Partners LLC will develop the 62 condominium units, with prices from about $350,000 to more than $1 million, said Kent Collins, a Centro partner.
The city last year tapped a group led by Austin-based Southwest Strategies Group Inc. to redevelop the 7.8-acre Seaholm site, which will include preserving and reusing the power plant and its Art Deco-style facade. The plan includes converting the plant into 80,000 square feet of retail, restaurant, office and meeting and events space. Other elements include a two-story office building behind the plant and landscaped plazas.
John Rosato, a Southwest Strategies principal, said more announcements are expected in the next two to three months, as well as architectural drawings of the project that is expected to be 400,000 square feet and cost more than $100 million.
Seaholm's hotel/condo "will be the perfect complement to other kinds of uses likely to be featured within the Seaholm site," Rosato said. Danny Roth, the other principal at the firm, also is involved in Seaholm.
The city is a partner in the Seaholm project, along with Southwest Strategies, Trigger and Design Collective Inc., a Baltimore firm that has experience in redeveloping power plants. Negotiations on a final development agreement with the city should wrap up late this year or in early 2007.
Seaholm previously had been considered as a possible new home for the Austin Children's Museum and the "Austin City Limits" public television show. Both now will be part of a mixed-use project that Stratus Properties Inc. will build north of City Hall.
The Seaholm Plaza is one of eight hotels planned for downtown, three of which will include condominiums. The others are a W hotel that is part of the Stratus project and the Hotel Van Zandt, planned for a site at Red River and Rainey Streets.
Alan Holt, sales director for the 5 Fifty Five condos in the Hilton Austin, said hotels and condos complement each other.
"Residents love being able to order room service, to go down to the coffee shop or bar without ever leaving the building," Holt said. "And the hotel benefits from having stable residents in the building."
Randy McCaslin, a hotel industry consultant, said construction costs for full-service hotels have risen about 25 percent in the past two years, making them hard to finance.
By including condominiums, developers can reduce their debt by using cash from condominium pre-sales, said McCaslin, a vice president in the Houston office of PKF Consulting.
The Marriott International hotel chain is part of the biggest downtown hotel project, a Congress Avenue complex that will include a 650-room convention hotel and two smaller hotels.
J. Willard Marriott, chairman and CEO of the company, was in Austin on Thursday for the official grand opening of a Residence Inn and Courtyard by Marriott near the Austin Convention Center.
"This city continues to attract a lot of business," Marriott said. "The University of Texas is a huge generator of business, the convention center is very attractive and has a lot of space and there is a lot of activity downtown, which we think is very important. You've got a lot of offer."
Marriott also said few cities can boast Austin's year-round hotel occupancy, which he said is above 70 percent. Marriott and others are building here "because of the dynamics of the market," he said. "There are very few cities in this country running that kind of year-round occupancy."
[email protected]; 445-3856. Staff writer Claudia Grisales contributed to this report.
Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/other/09/22/22seaholm.html
Prev
W!
most optimistic announcements. If a bank says it is funding a project, why not take it on good faith. JEEZ!
Linear Mode
