D Magazine: The good news keeps coming for downtown Dallas. Today, Starwood Hotels & Resorts and KFK Group announced plans to open a new Westin Hotel in downtown Dallas at One Main Place.
New Orleans-based KFK Group acquired the 1 million-square-foot building earlier this year. It occupies a full city block at Main, Elm, Field, and Griffin streets.
The new hotel will offer 323 guest rooms, a new restaurant and bar, and 27,000 square feet of meeting space, including a ballroom that will overlook a courtyard. The 32nd floor will feature additional meeting space, as well as an executive lounge, two board rooms, workout facilities, and an indoor pool overlooking Main Street. The hotel’s entrance will be along Elm Street, with a second-floor lobby being developed in the former banking hall. It’s expected to open by December.
“This exciting adaptive reuse project will reintroduce the world-renowned Westin brand to downtown Dallas and play an important role in the ongoing revitalization of the city’s urban core,” said Brian Povinelli, global brand leader for Westin Hotels & Resorts and Le Méridien Hotels, in a statement.
In exploring ways to reposition One Main Place, which has operated as an office building for about 50 years, the company decided that a hotel would be the best fit. The building also will feature 600,000 square feet of office space, 50,000 square feet of retail space, and below-grade parking.
“KFK is committed to downtown Dallas and this project conveys the confidence we have in the area,” said CEO Elie Khoury. “Both Mayor Mike Rawlings and John Crawford [of Downtown Dallas Inc.] have been very supportive since we purchased One Main, and we hope The Westin Dallas Downtown encourages more people to visit downtown Dallas.”
Rawlings said the new hotel will play a key role in the city’s renaissance. “Dallas is one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, and our tourism is booming as well,” he said. “A high-quality hotel like Westin will add even more momentum to the incredible revitalization of our downtown and to the economic growth of our entire city.”
The One Main Place project joins a number of other significant renovation projects underway in the urban core. Here’s an update on other developments from a recent story in D CEO.
[Christine Perez]
