HOUSTON — A new Hyatt Place hotel is planned for downtown Houston, following the approval of financing to convert a landmark office building into a modern, select-service hotel.
Dallas-based Hall Structured Finance has closed a first-lien construction loan of $22.8 million to fund the adaptive reuse of the 70-year-old Southwestern Bell Telephone Company office building. The financing will support renovating the 16-story structure into a 150-key, all-suite Hyatt Place hotel.
The project is being developed by Anthony and Nick Patel, co-owners of Pride Management on Beaumont. Pride Management will operate the property once conversion and construction are complete.
The Southwestern Building sits at 1114 Texas Avenue in downtown Houston, just a short distance from the former Houston Chronicle building and within the core of the city’s business and cultural district.
This hotel conversion aligns with efforts by Central Houston to expand the city’s hospitality inventory and compete more aggressively for large conventions. Central Houston’s leadership has identified adding hotel rooms as a key step in elevating the city’s profile as a major convention destination.
“What we’re really trying to do is become a competitor in the Top 10 convention facilities in America. To do that, we need another 4,000 hotel rooms in addition to the 8,000 rooms we have today in downtown,” said Bob Eury, president of Central Houston, in a recent interview. He noted that downtown Houston’s hotel capacity has grown substantially since the late 1990s, when there were only four hotels totaling roughly 1,800 rooms. Today, downtown features 25 hotels with about 7,800 rooms, and several projects in the pipeline could increase that total to about 8,300 rooms. With more rooms available, Houston aims to attract larger conventions and boost tourism.
The Hyatt Place conversion of the Southwestern Building represents both a preservation-minded reuse of a historic structure and a strategic addition to downtown’s lodging options, supporting the broader goal of strengthening Houston’s convention and tourism economy.