A rendering of the Fifth & Brazos mixed-use tower, viewed from the ground. Image: bKL Architecture
Dual-branded hotels are all the rage these days, and Austin is no exception — the recent Aloft / Element project downtown, White Lodging’s Autograph Collection / AC Hotel currently under construction near the University of Texas Campus, and the Hotel Indigo / Holiday Inn Express combo over in the Red River Cultural District are good examples.
Another rendering of the Fifth & Brazos mixed-use tower. Image: bKL Architecture
They say it only takes three to make a trend, but this week, we’ve got a fourth member of the dual-branded pack. At a development luncheon hosted earlier today by the Real Estate Council of Austin, Rich Leisy, regional vice president for Ryan Companies, announced the two hotel brands — or “flags,” as they’re known — for the upcoming 32-story mixed-use tower planned by Chicago-based developer Magellan for the parking lot located at the northeast corner of Fifth and Brazos Streets.
A rendering of Fifth & Brazos from Ryan Companies’ presentation.. Image: Ryan Companies
(Full disclosure: I moderated the panel where this information was announced.)
So what are we getting? The two brands headed for 5th & Brazos are both concepts of international lodging outfit Two Roads Hospitality. The first is Thompson Hotels, an upmarket boutique concept with locations in New York, Chicago, Nashville, Seattle, and Toronto — along with three in Mexico. The brand has recently demonstrated an effort to enter the Texas market in a major way, with hotels in the pipeline in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and now Austin.
Another rendering of Fifth & Brazos from Ryan Companies’ presentation. Image: Ryan Companies
The second, simply known as tommie, is a seemingly millennial-targeted “lifestyle micro-hotel” brand only recently acquired by Two Roads after an aborted attempt to enter the New York market as a Commune Hotels & Resorts property, which has since merged with Two Roads. The brand is fashioned as a sort of little brother to Thompson, with the first Two Roads location set to open in Hollywood by 2020. Also, they don’t capitalize tommie — it appears to be “a thing.”
“To the youthful and open-minded, tommie is a lifestyle micro hotel brand designed to unleash the potential of every interaction, every moment, and every square foot.
tommie hotels are set to become the blueprint for the next evolution of hotels in gateway cities. Combining form and function, the experience is atypical, but intuitive—and a new way to look at hotel living.”
— Two Roads Hospitality
Both hotels are situated on the same level of the building, between floors five and 14. The Thompson Hotel, with 211 keys, is the larger of the spaces — but the tommie, with its petite room sizes, still manages to fit 190 keys in a smaller space of the building.
A rendering of Fifth & Brazos with its various uses highlighted. Image: Ryan Companies
Above the hotels on levels 15 and 16 are what Leisy calls “flex floors,” a 49-key collection of units suitable for short and long-term use. From levels 17 to 32 is the building’s residential component, and according to Leisy, these residential units will share amenities with the property’s hotel guests in a similar fashion to the Four Seasons and W Hotel Residences. According to Leisy, the project will deliver its hotel components by early Q4 2020, with the residential usage delivered in three phases that will also complete in Q4 2020. Overall, the project’s final completion is currently scheduled for Q1 2021.
Here’s a video of the Fifth & Brazos presentation from the RECA panel, where you’ll find most of this information and several additional views of the tower:
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