FORT WORTH | Convention Center Hotel | FT | FLOORS

[Urbannizer]

Early stages of development.



Full Article: http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2015/09/15/c...to-fort-worth/

Originally Posted by CBS DFW

Convention Center Hotel Could Be Coming To Fort Worth
September 15, 2015 10:40 PM

Fort Worth is sending out a request to developers to submit ideas about building a 1,000 room hotel next to it’s convention center in the south end of downtown. The move coincides with continuing assessments to replace the 50-year old “flying saucer” arena on the north end of the convention center. That is welcome news to businesses on the fringe of the convention center foot traffic.

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But that could change as Fort Worth gives the area a massive face lift. The city would straighten a bending stretch of Commerce on the east of the convention center making room for a massive, privately built, 1,000 room hotel to help keep pace with rival convention centers.

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And the city will hire an architect to begin assessing how much of the convention center will be upgraded as the hotel is added. Looking around the arena area it’s easy to see why they want to tear it down entirely. In its place they’ll build a new building with 200,000 square feet more space. It would also encourage people to walk in and out from Commerce and Houston Streets.

[Austin55]

This one will be a while. Fort Worth Business Press

the city has been making plans for an expanded Convention Center and adjacent 1,000-room hotel. City staff plans to give the Fort Worth City Council an update on the project on March 22, according to Kirk Slaughter, the city’s public events director.
It’ll be a while before ground is broken, though – funding for the projects may not be available until about 2022-2025, Slaughter said in a statement.

[chris08876]

From the article above:

According to a 2014 study by real estate consultant Hunden Strategic Partners, downtown Fort Worth doesn’t have enough hotel rooms to remain competitive for large meetings and events. Downtown has ten competitive hotels – such as the Omni Fort Worth Hotel and the Renaissance Worthington – that collectively total 2,623 rooms, according to the study.

I'm surprised that the presence of Dallas wouldn't be enough for the bank to view hotel demand as something that's not a risk? Given the presence of a lot of companies that are outside of the core of Ft.Worth and Dallas (suburbs or fringes essentially), a project such as this shouldn't have issues securing funding.

It just seems that the wait is to long given the multitude of projects that get funding right away.

[Austin55]

Yeh, I'm not sure why funding would be an issue just yet. The real big delay right now is waiting on the new arena to be built so the old one can be torn down, then waiting on the expansion of the existing convention center over the old arena space. This will take several years on it's own, so 2022 or so seems about right.

In the meantime, we have several other hotel proposals that are going on and atleast one is under construction (though it's only 8 floors, the largest proposal I've seen is 14)

[Urbannizer]

Omni Fort Worth plans $217M expansion with second hotel tower, garage and restaurant

https://www.star-telegram.com/news/b...264571581.html

A major expansion of the Omni Fort Worth Hotel, which was sidelined during the pandemic, is back on track with plans for a second smaller tower extending to West Lancaster Avenue and an additional parking garage.

The $217 million project will result in a 400-room expansion over an entire city block, currently the site of a Tarrant Community College administrative building. Omni is under contract with TCC to purchase the property. The city of Fort Worth would contribute $53 million in incentives to the project.

When the work is complete, including a refresh of the existing hotel, the Omni Fort Worth will have 1,008 rooms over two blocks across from the Fort Worth Convention Center along Houston Street. The existing Omni tower is 33 stories and was built in 2009. It is unclear how many stories the new tower will have, but renderings show it would be similar in height to other Lancaster corridor buildings.

The expansion was expected to start moving forward in March 2020, but COVID-19 shut down the country and upended the travel industry. The halt forced a full reconsideration of the project, which at the time had a $174 million price tag.