Aug. 27–
With construction continuing to run ahead of schedule, downtown Austin’s new 1,000-room JW Marriott hotel has again pushed forward its opening date.
The 34-story, 1,012-room convention hotel, at East Second Street and Congress Avenue, is now set to welcome its first guests Feb. 13, Indiana-based developer White Lodging said Wednesday. When completed, the facility will be the city’s largest hotel.
Wednesday also marked the first time the hotel began taking room reservations from individual guests, general manager Scott Blalock said. Bookings can be made online at jwmarriottaustin.com.
“It’s exciting to reach the point in this process where we are able to begin accepting individual room reservations,” Blalock said. “We’re putting the finishing touches on the spaces our guests will enjoy the most, and we’re proud to be one step closer to providing Austin with this superb hotel for everyone to enjoy.”
Already, event organizers have booked gatherings at the hotel that will account for more than 375,000 room nights through 2020, White Lodging said.
Work on the lobby, swimming pool, bars and restaurants, meeting rooms and other public areas inside the JW Marriott is 80 percent complete, Blalock said. In the next few weeks, crews will begin work on patterned ceilings and floors in the lobby designed to reflect a topographical map of the Austin area.
Food offerings at the hotel will include a Starbucks coffee shop, an Italian restaurant, a restaurant highlighting local cuisine and a walk-up food window on Congress Avenue.
Newly hired executive chef Juan Martinez will oversee the restaurants, the hotel said. Martinez most recently was executive chef at the Marco Island Marriott Beach Resort, Golf Club and Spa in Marco Island, Fla.
The JW Marriott is one of several new hotels set to come online in the downtown area in the next few years, including another convention-sized hotel, the 1,054-room Fairmont Austin at East Cesar Chavez and Red River streets. It is scheduled to open in either 2016 or 2017.
Other hotels in the works in Central Austin include ones affiliated with the Westin, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn Express and Hotel ZaZa brands.
Demand is high for downtown Austin hotel rooms and occupancy rates are among the highest in the nation, developers and industry analysts say. The Hotel Tonight app, which allows last-minute booking at hotels nationwide, reported Wednesday that, because of demand, the cost of same-day hotel bookings this summer in Austin has jumped 31 percent compared to last year — the largest increase among the top 50 U.S. hotel markets.
