A proposal from JW Marriott shows what a new River Walk hotel on Houston Street could look like.
IBC Bank applied for permits to turn a downtown office and the facade of the 1926 Texas Theater into a 300-room hotel with the city in September.
Now, a proposal from JW Marriott shows what that hotel could look like.
The project would involve retrofitting one of IBC Bank’s downtown office buildings, also the former headquarters of AT&T. A new, 14-story building would also be constructed. It would include parking, a ballroom, event space and a rooftop pool in the heart of downtown.
The hotel would keep an existing plaza, the historic Texas Theater facade on Houston Street and access to the River Walk.
There would be room for a restaurant on the ground floor, according to renderings submitted to the city.
There is a large JW Marriott resort hotel on the outskirts of San Antonio in the Hill Country. The resort opened in 2010 and has more than 1,000 rooms. In 2018, it was sold to private equity firm Blackstone and in 2023 it was sold again to Ryman Hospitality Properties, a Nashville-based company.
JW Marriott and IBC Bank’s proposal is part of a larger shift away from office space in San Antonio’s downtown core after the pandemic.
The Nix, Highpoint Towers and the Tower Life Building are all former office spaces that are being converted into housing as demand for workspace decreases and downtown building owners pivot to new options.
Hotel Havana, another downtown hotel, closed its doors in October after a rough year for the local hospitality industry.
That hasn’t stopped other hotel projects, though. The Monarch Hotel near Hemisfair Park is scheduled to open in March.
