New Hotel Project Shapes Up in Downtown; 156,000-square-foot Office Building Sold

By Camelia Bulea, Associate Editor

A 137-room Hampton Inn & Suites is planned to be built in downtown Austin near the University of Texas campus and the Capitol. The eight-story building will be built on the site that was once meant for the eight-story Fondren condo tower, a project that died in 2010, according to the Austin Business Journal.

Construction work is expected to be completed by this fall, as the hotel is planned to open in September 2012. Once opened, the hotel will employ about 40 people. The hotel will be operated by Houston-based Vista Host, Inc., which currently manages four other hotels in Austin. The general contractor for the project is Ebco General Contractor, Ltd.

In other hospitality real estate news, the first official contract was secured for Hyatt Place Austin Downtown, although the 296-room hotel is slated to open no sooner than the spring of 2013. The contract was signed for events that will take place in 2014, such as the Congress of Cities and Exposition that November and the Annual Meeting for the American Association of Physicists in Medicine that July. At present, construction at the hotel includes the lobby-level flooring, walls and columns, which are now in place according to the Austin Business Journal.

Also making headlines this week is the purchase of the six-floor Centennial Towers office building in North Austin by Braun Enterprises. The 156,293-square-foot building is 83 percent occupied.

The purchase price was not disclosed, but according to public records, it was appraised for $12.1 million, as reported by the Austin Business Journal. CB Richard Ellis represented the Class B property seller in this transaction.

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Photo credits: www.cbremarketplace.com