July 06–The city’s newest hotel is set to welcome its first guests next week.
After 18 months of construction, the 366-room, 20-story Westin Austin Downtown, at 310 E. Fifth St., will debut July 16 — the latest in a string of hotels set to open in the downtown area over the next two to three years.
With the Westin’s opening, Austin will have almost 8,000 hotel rooms in its central business district, according to city figures. Once the building boom wraps up, that number is expected to soar to roughly 11,000.
Many of those new rooms are coming from White Lodging, the Westin’s developer. The Indiana-based company, which already operates about 20 hotels in Central Texas, opened the 1,012-room JW Marriott this year and is gearing up to start construction on hotels affiliated with the Element and Aloft brands at East Seventh Street and Congress Avenue.
Two or three additional downtown hotels are possible, Deno Yiankes, president and CEO of White Lodging’s investment and development division, told the American-Statesman recently.
“People want to come to Austin and there weren’t enough rooms,” said Kristofer Carlson, the Westin’s general manager. “Every hotel we bring to Austin is only enhancing the products and talent we have here.”
The hotel will have about 250 employees, director of sales and marketing Alison Berg said. While some other hotels have said recently they’ve had trouble filling spots, Berg and Carlson said that wasn’t an issue for the Westin.
“We’re so excited about our team,” Berg said. “There’s so much energy.”
The Westin’s location — a block from the Sixth Street entertainment district and near the Austin Convention Center — is expected to draw a mix of leisure and business travelers, Carlson said.
The hotel’s restaurant, Stella San Jac, aims to attract downtown dwellers, in addition to hotel guests. On the hotel’s ground floor, it has a mix of inside and outside seating that can accommodate more than 150 people.
Stella San Jac, which will feature an “eclectic Southern” menu, will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. Hotel guests can order room service 24 hours a day.
“We really want the neighborhood to come and enjoy the restaurant,” Carlson said. “We created it for the locals. We wanted it to have its own personality.”
Other hotel features include a lobby bar, 16 meeting rooms, a 4,500-square-foot ballroom, a fitness center and a pool on the 20th floor with its own bar. Internet speeds will be half a gigabit — “10 times what we’d need,” Carlson said.
“We could all have five gadgets going and we’d still be able to keep up,” he said.
Throughout the building — in the lobby, Stella San Jac and guest rooms — White Lodging’s design team has given subtle nods to the city’s music scene, such as prints featuring guitar picks that adorn the walls. That level of customization was important, Carlson said, to help make the hotel memorable.
“What we really wanted to capture when you walk in is a real ‘wow’ factor,” he said.
