Looking west from Cesar Chavez Street at the eastern side of the new Marriott hotel tower, with the Four Seasons Residences on the left and the JW Marriott hotel tower in the background — gonna be a lot of Marriott around here. Photo by James Rambin.
It sounds a little strange to call a 31-story tower project “under the radar,” but for all its prominence, the new Marriott hotel tower rising at the northwest corner of Cesar Chavez and Trinity Streets just across from the Austin Convention Center hasn’t received all that much attention in the news lately.
A rendering of the finished project, looking at the corner of San Jacinto Boulevard and Cesar Chavez Street from this angle. Image: Marriott Austin Downtown / White Lodging
Still, its 613 guest rooms and direct proximity to the convention center — so close, in fact, that plans have been considered for skybridges between the hotel and expanded center — makes it an interesting project for a downtown district we don’t always love.
A view of the corner at Cesar Chavez and Trinity Streets where the Marriott project now stands, dating back to when it was basically just a hole in the ground — as in, last year. This thing went up quick!
Set to open in mid-2020, the project has risen faster than a lot of its peers, and at the end of last month its operators White Lodging celebrated the tower’s “topping out” — meaning the completion of its exterior structural framework, a milestone commemorated in this case with bourbon barrels raised via crane. I’ll let them explain:
In place of raising the “final beam,” the Austin Marriott Downtown will raise three Garrison Brothers bourbon barrels via crane on the hotel’s rooftop to commemorate structural completion. Just like bourbon takes on the characteristics of the barrel and its environment, the Austin Marriott Downtown is taking on the spirit of Austin and the surrounding neighborhood in its final construction stages. The barrels will remain on the roof throughout the duration of the construction period until opening in mid-2020, at which time the hotel’s first guests will be treated to an exclusive Austin Marriott-inspired whiskey tasting.
— White Lodging Press Release, Sept. 30, 2019
Fair enough, y’all. Topping out is just one milestone of many, and with months to go before that mid-2020 opening target there’s a lot of interior work to be done — but a topped out tower means we now know its final height and impact on the skyline.
The Four Seasons Residences and new Marriott tower, with the Austin Convention Center in the foreground. Photo by James Rambin.
It may not be the tallest or most prominent building in our growing collection of downtown towers both imagined and actually under construction, but considering the project’s role in whatever an expanded convention center might look like — and even the possibility, only recently revealed, of yet another tower just down the street — maybe it’s time we forced ourselves to keep a closer watch on downtown’s “convention district.” It’s a shame a lot of the restaurants suck, but the Marriott itself might fix that soon enough, with four bars and a restaurant on deck. Thanks, Marriott!
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