A San Diego developer plans to build a 50-story convention center hotel just east of the Austin Convention Center. It would be on the northeast corner of Cesar Chavez and Red River Street.
Perry Lorenz, who owns the site, and his partner have entered into a 99-year lease agreement with the developer, Manchester Financial of San Diego.
The hotel would be off of Waller Creek, which the city is redeveloping.
"There are multiple studies that indicate that Austin loses a lot of money every year because we don't have enough hotel rooms that feed off the Convention Center, so we lose great big conventions over and over. As anybody from Austin knows when we have South By Southwest and some of these conventions that insist on being in Austin even if we don't have enough hotels rooms this will go a long way to helping solve that issue," Lorenz told KUT News.
The new hotel would have over 1,000 rooms. The developer has already started the design work. Lorenz said he thinks the hotel could be completed in late 2014.
Another developer is planning a similar large hotel on Congress Avenue.
"I guess the $64,000 question is whether this community or this city could support two hotels that size. Both of the projects seem to be proceeding, both of the developers say they're going regardless. So it's possible we'll get two of these big hotels which I think basically shows the kind of faith people have in Austin, TX and the hope they have for it," Lorenz said.