Austin Convention Center Planners Nix Hotel, Apartments

The construction of a hotel or residential tower at the planned $1.6 billion Austin Convention Center redevelopment has been scrubbed.  The city’s reconstruction of the downtown exhibition hall begins next April when the facility will be shut down before it’s demolished.

Community Impact reports the Austin Convention Center team previously proposed using two of the property’s six city blocks to partner with a private entity on a tower project that could have included a hotel or new housing. However, staff reported in late September that those are no longer possible as development moves forward. The city said it wouldn’t pencil out.

While that aspect of the project is no longer moving forward, the loss will allow the new convention center to take up a larger footprint.

The new, larger convention center is expected to open ahead of the 2029 spring festival season. The new convention complex is expected to include more than 700,000 square feet of exhibition space situated below street level, plus a few stories of above-ground space.