Aug. 21–
The Hyatt Regency Austin is putting the finishing touches on a $20 million expansion and renovation project.
Work started in early 2013, with crews building a seven-story, 800-space parking garage during the first phase of construction, which wrapped up last fall. Now, they’ve finished work on the new Zilker Ballroom and a skyway that connects the ballroom with the 17-story hotel tower.
Still to come is a Starbucks coffeeshop that will be added to the lobby of the 30-year-old hotel, which is at 208 Barton Springs Road near downtown Austin. It should open next month.
Spanning 14,136 square feet, the Hyatt Regency’s ballroom is the city’s second-largest, according to Ryan Galvin, the hotel’s director of sales and marketing.
Only the Hilton Austin Hotel, at 500 E. Fourth St., has a bigger ballroom, coming in at 26,000 square feet.
“The ballroom allows us to work more closely with national associations and groups,” Galvin said. “Now we’re a one-stop hotel where you can meet, eat and stay the night.”
The ballroom can seat up to 1,200 dinner guests, according to general manager Lance Stumpf. It can also be divided into four separate rooms to handle smaller groups.
“We’re out of the recession and corporations are starting to meet more,” he said. “We just weren’t where we needed to be, size-wise.”
Previously, the largest group the Hyatt Regency could accommodate in its smaller Texas Ballroom, which will continue to be used, was about 800 people, he said.
The annual Austin Children’s Shelter Gala, set to be held at the Hyatt Regency on Oct. 25, is one example of a large-scale event the hotel can host because of the expansion project, Stumpf said.
“We weren’t quite big enough before,” he said. “Now we are.”
The ballroom addition features indoor and outdoor reception areas, including a covered porch offering views of the Austin skyline and nearby Lady Bird Lake that can accommodate about 225 people.
“Everyone who has seen the Zilker Ballroom so far has been blown away,” Galvin said. “They immediately fall in love with it.”
To ensure there are enough hotel rooms for all attendees using the ballroom for conventions, meetings, weddings and other gatherings, the Hyatt Regency, which has 448 rooms, is teaming with the adjacent Embassy Suites Austin-Downtown. The partnership makes 259 additional rooms available for guests.
The contractor for both the parking garage and Zilker Ballroom was Austin-based DCA Construction. That’s the same company that handled a $17 million top-to-bottom remodel of the Hyatt Regency’s guest rooms, lobby, restaurant and fitness center in 2009.
