Westin downtown Austin going up with 366 rooms

AUSTIN – Construction has started on a 366-room Westin hotel that will rise 17 stories at the northeast corner of East Fifth St. and San Jacinto Blvd, only a block and a half from the Austin Convention Center. The hotel is due to open in spring 2015.

The hotel will generate about 140 permanent jobs and an estimated $6.3 million annually in property, sales and City of Austin taxes, according to White Lodging.

The project is a joint venture between White Lodging, the Harry Whittington family and REI Real Estate Services LLC.

It will be the 24th White Lodging-managed hotel in the Austin area; the other Westin is at the Domain mixed-use development in North Austin.

White Lodging also is the developer of the 34-story, 1,012-room JW Marriott convention hotel under construction at Congress Ave. and Second St., which is due to open in early 2015. That hotel will be Austin’s largest, as well as the largest JW Marriott in the United States to date.

Read more at the Austin American-Statesman.