Austin | Austin Marriott Downtown | 386 FEET | 31 FLOORS | Complete
 

The Block 8 hotel by White Lodging became a real project today with this permit filing:

https://www.austintexas.gov/devrevie...erRSN=11511609

It's being referred to as Cesar Chavez hotel, and this is the rendering posted in the Convention Center thread last August:

http://communityimpact.com/wp-conten...0436721834.png
http://communityimpact.com/austin/co...ter-expansion/

Construction cam link

https://app.oxblue.com/open/tournee/AustinMarriott

woah

Pretty exciting however I'm starting to wonder how many more hotels are we going to see built? The X Games are leaving and there's still uncertainty about the future of F1 at COTA. With one major sporting event gone after this year and another in jepardy, even with our normal events and festivals, will all these hotels be able to fill throughout the year?

I'm sure there will be new things coming and with the city continuing to grow so too will it's status as a tourist destination.

Maybe there is something in the works that we have yet to know anything about in terms of bringing a large influx of visitors besides what we currently have but think about it. We are still seeing some quite significant hotel projects in the works including that possible second hotel on Red River between 3rd and 4th that "could" be in the 50 story range. There's the hotel proposed for the Brick Oven site, who knows if ZaZa is going to get built but if it does will be another addition not to mention Austin Proper or that possible 6th & Nueces and those are only the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

At some point you would think there will be a pause of new hotels unless something else really big is on the horizon.

Hopefully we can get the UIL bball games back.

So crazy.

I have some experience with White Lodging (I'm a hotelier) and that rendering puts it (I'm guessing) around 600rms. This scans with their MO in other markets. In Indianapolis for instance they have a huge 1000+ rm JW Marriott and a 600 rm Marriott nearby. I'd wager that's what they're going for here.

Two observations:

1) this only works if the CC gets expanded. So the permit filing is either a way to push the city council forward or the CC expansion is much further along than we thought.

2) Even with the CC expansion, the Manchester project on Red River and 4th won't go forward in the size they're projecting, if at all. Just spitballing: Cesar Chavez hotel = 600 rms; Fairmont = 1000+rms; Hilton = 800 rms; JW Marriott = 1000+ rms. That's 3400 full service convention rooms either connected to or within a block of the CC. That doesn't include offerings like the Hampton Inn or Residence Inn. It also doesn't include the Westin, The Van Zandt, Aloft/Element, Omni, etc. All within a 6 block walk. I just can't see the demand, even with a new CC, being able to accommodate all of that.

All good points, but if they built it and it sat empty just to block half the ugly 4 Seasons condos, I would be happy, not to mention the nice density add.

I think there are enough events in the Austin area (even smaller ones) that could meet the growing supply. Losing X Games and potentially F1 could impact things, for sure, but there were already some pretty big needs prior to both of those things. I don't see those needs going away - just changing.

One of the attachments to the permit filing says the design phase is 30% complete. That seems to be surprisingly far along. White Lodging doesn't mess around when they want to build something.

Just to be clear, the image above shows a much larger project than the hotel. The permit only addresses the hotel structure along CC:

http://i.imgur.com/fS60ITz.png

Can't speak for others, but I assumed as much.

Yeah, I think with context it is clear, but just popping in, I wasn't 100% sure.

Found this online (can't remember source). It's White Lodging's Austin Marriott rendering. I doubt it's anything what it'll look like, but confirms it to be a Marriott.

http://i1172.photobucket.com/albums/...sflfy7xqq.jpeg

There's an alley in the diagram. I would assume the alley will be gone if and when the CC expansion is built? In the rendering it looks like the hotel is directly built into the CC. I guess if the hotel is built first, it will be designed to be attached to the expansion.

Zooming into the rendering maybe they will keep the alley and just build over it.


Oh and this is just an observation and may not mean anything but I noticed that there is no Waller Park Place. There is no 99 Trinity either but I think we can all agree that one is just not going to happen.

Usually (but not always) renderings at least have place holder blocks where future buildings will be. I may be reading to much into it but it's odd that they don't. Could it be that Waller Park Place will not be built in the form it was presented? That's looking much more likely.

And one more thing... Wouldn't the residents of the 4 Seasons Residencies make a fuss about a wall completely blocking their views to the north? In this situation the city should push for a tall slender tower so as to at least keep some of their views. I mean it's been done in other situations so why not? It's a good spot for a tall tower. I'd like to see it's length cut in half and added in height.

That was actually one of the first rendering of the JW Marriott. Thank god it didn't end up looking like that! :)

Thank god the Austonian didn't end up looking like that either.

Lol... Right! :cheers:

I was thinking the same thing on the Austonian.

This is an early rendering of the JW Marriott on Congress. Note the horizontally stretched Austonian.

Yeah, same for almost all the new walls in town. Blech. Hopefully 4SR will raise a big stink about it and help us prevent the construction of this as pictured. And it looks like another one on stilts above a multi-level parking garage. At least the garage isn't 40% of the total height, but, come on, do we really need... do.... I can't.

EDIT --- hold on a sec, is that big green space all elevated, on top of garage and/or other structures? Convention space perhaps? If that's a park several stories above the surface then I retract my complaints and do a 180. This is interesting, this could be pretty cool.

If they stick to the convention center expansion plans (the above picture - not the JW Marriott knock-off), it'll be above convention space - but the hotel itself, I'm not sure if that's the case. The park is above convention space in the expansion rendering.

Speaking of which, is there any news on this expansion? The hotel is news, of course, but it sounds separate...it was mentioned above by someone that it could just tie into the expansion in the future, I guess.