It’s been a long time since a new building was announced downtown. Today, Starwood announced plans to build a new 17-story concept hotel called Hotel 1 (Hotel One? One? 1? Hotel1?) on the southwest corner of 5th and Colorado across Colorado from Kenichi.
The new eco-luxury concept will feature 250 – 275 rooms and will be developed by Woodbine, the Dallas hotel developer that built the Hyatt Lost Pines just outside Austin and the Hyatt Hill Country and Westin Las Cantera in San Antonio.
The 210+ foot building will require a zoning change to allow for additional density. In the past, the City has council has typically approved these requests for non-lake front downtown properties in an effort to drive additional downtown density. The warehouse district, however, is an important low-rise neighborhood that will likely require a more careful review of the project.
The new project is one of the first Hotel 1 hotels to be developed in what will become a new Starwood franchise (Starwood operates W, Westin, Sheraton, Aloft, St. Regis, and a few other brands). Previous Hotel 1 projects have been announced for Washington DC, Seattle, and other markets. Recent reports, however, suggest that these other projects may now be on hold.
While every hotel will likely be uniquely designed, renderings of the planned 11-story Washington DC Hotel 1 provide hints of how they may develop the 5th and Colorado site:
Renderings of the Washington DC Hotel 1
This is the first hotel project to be announced in downtown Austin in two years. During that time, a number of major hotel projects have been put on hold including the much dreaded Congress Avenue Marriott (originally proposed as three hotels), the 290 room Hotel Van Zandt and a planned Westin in the warehouse district.
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