The downtown Hilton’s old look. Image: Hilton Worldwide
You may have noticed a new look lately at the downtown Austin condo and hotel tower at Fourth and Neches Streets, home to the Hilton Austin and 5 Fifty Five residences. A new coat of paint is probably the quickest way to transform an existing building — just ask the LINE Hotel, which recently brightened up the exterior of the former Radisson at Congress Avenue and Cesar Chavez Street. Look at the difference between the colors in the photo below, which was taken halfway through the application of the new paint job:
An October 2017 view of the former Radisson-turned-LINE Hotel on Congress Avenue, midway through its new paint job. Isn’t that old color just terrible? Photo by James Rambin.
As part of its on-trend remodel, the building went from an unfortunate brownish-beige shade to a lighter off-white, and in the process became something worth looking at — there was once a time I considered the Radisson / LINE building a bit of an eyesore, but now I really appreciate its midcentury charm.
Anyway, the Hilton tower’s new look, which coincides with the opening of a snazzy new skybridge over Fourth Street to the convention center, replaces the brownish exterior common to a few too many members of our skyline. Over the last year or so, the hotel has slowly repainted its exterior to a lighter shade, not unlike the extremely effective glow-up of the former Radisson — and now that the color changes are visible on the side of the building facing downtown, the difference is a lot more striking. Here’s the before and after:
A before/after comparison for the Hilton’s new paint job — before on the left, after on the right. Images: Hilton / James Rambin
Along with the lighter color, the hotel’s got a snazzy new wordmark sign replacing the old logo, plus they’re doing something with the black paint on the windows — combining each set of four smaller windows on the face of the building to look like larger windows on the exterior grid, I guess you’d say? It makes more sense when you look at the photo:
The partially-completed new look of the downtown Hilton / 5 Fifty Five condo building’s exterior. It’s definitely a work in progress, and you can tell the bit on the far left side isn’t done yet. The side facing the highway isn’t either. Sorry about this photo — the weather isn’t so good lately. Photo by James Rambin.
The black stripe down the side under the logo looks great, and we’re big fans of using more dark shades in downtown buildings after decades of brown and beige. If you don’t spend your whole day craning your neck up at towers like we do, this change isn’t super drastic, but it’s certainly an improvement to the existing building. We’d naturally prefer something a little more aggressive, like covering the whole thing in gold plating, but this is still way better!
Along with the new skybridge, the area around this Hilton will see some major improvements over the next few years, between upcoming plans for a new downtown MetroRail station and public plaza area on Fourth Street, and the longer-term vision for the rehabilitation of Brush Square across the street to the west of the hotel. As this corner of downtown brightens up a bit, it’s nice to see the Hilton doing its best to keep up with the joneses.
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