Sept. 25–FORT WORTH — Construction may start next year on a six-story hotel in the city’s Cultural District, along with a new office building and parking garage, the project’s developer said.
Plans call for the new 156-room hotel to face Camp Bowie Boulevard, across from the Modern Art Museum, as the latest expansion of Museum Place, the 12-acre residential, office and retail development at University Drive and West Seventh Street.
The hotel will be adjacent to a six-story, 90,000-square-foot office building, said Tony Landrum, principal of TLC urban, the development group that joined JaGee Holdings in Museum Place a few years back. TLC urban is taking the lead in this expansion.
Dallas-based Gatehouse Capital is said to be the frontrunner for the hotel project. It’s not the first time the luxury hotel developer has looked at the city’s near west side. Seven years ago, Gatehouse Capital considered joining others to build the first hotel by the city’s world-renowned art museums, but the project never happened.
The planned “lifestyle” hotel will carry a major name, but Landrum declined to say which hotel brand is being considered. He only confirmed Gatehouse Capital’s involvement.
“Gatehouse Capital is looking at doing the hotel,” Landrum said. “That’s who’s on first base.”
Marty Collins, who founded Gatehouse Capital in 1997, said he would have more details about the project in about a month.
“I am interested in doing a hotel,” Collins said. “We’re working towards that now. The museum district is a very interesting place to be and there’s pent-up hotel demand there. I’m very positive about it.”
Landrum said financing and equity is in place for the project, but construction won’t begin until some office space is pre-leased, a requirement of the lenders. Those efforts will begin soon, he said. The buildings will be built at the same time and are slated to open in the fall of 2015.
Gatehouse Capital develops and redevelops mixed-use properties involving upscale hotels in urban and technology markets, according to its website. It develops Hyatt Hotel and Starwood Hotels and Resorts. In 2006, it was going to team with Champ Development and Aimbridge Hospitality for an aloft hotel in the Cultural District, but those plans never came to fruition.
Among its projects, Gatehouse Capital developed the W Hotel and Residences near the American Airlines Center in Dallas, the W Hotel and Residences in Hollywood, Calif., W Hotels in San Diego and Silicon Valley, the Hyatt Regency in San Diego and an aloft hotel in Jacksonville, Fla., according to its website.
Prior to starting Gatehouse Capital, Collins was a partner in a Trammell Crow affiliate, and an executive with the Hampstead Group, Americana Hotels and other Bass family-affiliated investments, the website said. The Basses developed the Americana Hotel in downtown Fort Worth, now the Worthington Renaissance.
Museum Place includes One Museum Building, a 166,000-square-foot, eight-story residential, office and retail building; the Modern Flat Iron Building, a four-story, mixed-use office and restaurant building; a three-story condo building with a street-level 7-Eleven convenience store, and a 218-unit apartment community nearing completion near Arch Adams and Boland streets. Landrum said the apartments are more than 90 percent leased.
Museum Place broke ground in 2007 and its master plan included a hotel, which was expected to be completed long before now. But then came the Great Recession and the project, like many others, slowed considerably. In the neighboring West 7th residential, office and retail project, developers canned plans to build a hotel and instead added apartments.
The new hotel will be the first in the area in some time. The Residence Inn by Marriott was opened in So7 in 2005 by Dallas-based Western International. And now, Dallas-based Centergy Retail plans a hotel as part of its planned 35-acre mixed-used project across from Trinity Park on West Seventh Street.
Aloft, considered a hip and urban-inspired hotel, is a part of Starwood’s W Hotel brand. Starwood’s other brands include Sheraton, Westin, St. Regis, Le Meridien, Element, Four Points and The Luxury Collection. Hyatt Hotels include Hawthorne Suites, Hyatt Place and Summerfield Suites.
Sandra Baker, 817-390-7727 Twitter: @SandraBakerFWST
