Texas Welcomes First Margaritaville Resort
The 186-acre property includes a 303-key hotel and 32 lakefront cottages, as well as a water park, a golf course and 72,000 square feet of meeting space.
Developers Songy Highroads and The Wampold Cos. have opened Margaritaville Lake Resort, Lake Conroe | Houston, the first Margaritaville-branded resort in the state.
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Located at 600 Margaritaville Parkway in Montgomery, Texas, the 186-acre resort includes a 20-story hotel with 303 suites starting at 600 square feet and 32 lakefront cottages with boat slips that range from 560 to 715 square feet. The resort offers five restaurants and bars, an 18,000-square-foot spa and hair salon, a 3-acre water park, an 18-hole golf course, pickleball and tennis courts, a 10,000-square-foot fitness center and 72,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor space for meetings, events and weddings. Guests also get access to boating, fishing and water ski rentals.
The joint venture of Songy Highroads and The Wampold Cos. announced the project last year, breaking ground on the development in June 2019. Leigh Ferrara, Songy Highroads’ vice president of asset management, told Commercial Property Executive that the developers tapped McCarthy as the general contractors, Gensler as the architect, The Mathis Group as the project manager and McBride Co. as the designer.
Staying patient for potential
Ferrara also told CPE that the Atlanta-based company was interested in the site of the new Margaritaville for a few years due to its size, waterfront location and the existing amenities like the water park, golf course, spa and meeting space. Previously, the location was home to the shuttered La Torretta Lake Resort & Spa.
“We had been outbid several times over the course of 2017 and 2018 but ultimately we had an opportunity to acquire it again in late 2018,” Ferrara told CPE. “We knew the site had vast potential which is why we did a full-scale renovation and rebranding to a Margaritaville Resort.”
Songy Highroads’ was able to sign a purchase agreement of the site in January 2019 and closed on the transaction in April 2019, Ferrara said. The company’s portfolio now includes the first Margaritaville in Texas but also stretches to hotel assets in Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia. In 2019, Songy Highroads and its partner The Carlyle Group were able to secure a $26 million refinancing for its 316-key hotel in Fairfax, Va.
