Downtown Marriott: 31 floors, 1,000+ Rooms

New plans were announced today for the most controversial project in downtown Austin: the 1,000+ room $250 million Marriott superplex on 2nd and Congress. The project, best known for displacing La Manitas, has been reconfigured to include higher-end brand hotels and fewer, taller “buildings”. As far as we can tell, the 31-story project still does not include any ground floor retail. While the project has an opportunity to extend the thriving 2nd street district towards the convention center and the new 21c Austin Condos and Museum, Marriott seems more interested in developing another large, generic, building on a prime downtown lot.

Here’s a summary from today’s Statesman:

White Lodging, which would develop, own and operate the hotels under a long-term agreement with Marriott International, still plans a 1,000-room project, but the new plans have two towers instead of three.New plans call for a 31-story tower along Brazos Street with 850 guest rooms and an 11-story hotel along Congress Avenue with 150 rooms.The larger Marriott will be a convention center hotel, and the smaller one will be a J.W. Marriott, the chain’s upscale brand. White Lodging hopes to break ground in early 2008 and open the hotels in 2010. . . Initial plans called for a 26-story Marriott convention center hotel with 650 rooms; an 11-story upscale Renaissance Hotel with 200 rooms; and a 15-story Springhill Suites with 150 rooms.

If this project had an interesting architect, ground floor retail, and a way to incorporate Las Manitas it might be a positive addition to downtown. While the 1,000 rooms will provide an important boost to the convention center and the Austin economy, the planned project is uninspiring and potentially disruptive to a prime pedestrian corridor on one of the most important downtown blocks.