Developers Eye 300-Room Hotels in Austin and Suburbs

By Camelia Bulea, Associate Editor

A 210-room hotel could be built in downtown Austin, on Congress Ave. The developer’s plan is to build a boutique hotel in the Bosche-Hogg Building, with 210 rooms and 120,000 square feet of office space, according to Austin Business Journal.

At the moment, there is another hotel planned in the city center, a 130-room and 26-story hotel project also on Congress Avenue. Both projects must pass multiple city boards and commissions before they are approved, because of the zoning request.

The Austin suburbs have also been attracting hotel developers. Pflugerville is one of the suburbs where the need for a new hotel is growing rapidly, due to the upcoming arrival of Formula 1 racing (F1). Currently, the city has two hotels: a Comfort Suites and a Holiday Inn, according to Austin Business Journal.

Still, the two new hotels are not located inside the Pflugerville city limits, so the need to build one inside the city limits is even bigger, keeping in mind that F1 could bring 100,000 people looking for accommodation in the city. Currently, the city does not have a hotel tax in place. Therefore, the interest to build a hotel in the city limits is even bigger considering the revenue generated by a hotel/motel tax.

Jeff Coleman, Mayor of Pflugerville, told Austin Business Journal that two years ago there was a feasibility study conducted to determine whether the city could support a 90-room hotel. Since then, there have been four different hotel developers that have shown interest in Pflugerville.