CBS DFW: [View Video]  A half-century old building on Main Street will be home to a Westin Hotel by the end of this year, according to Dallas city leaders. New Orleans-based KFK Group announced the plans Tuesday. The hotel will be the only Westin in the city, joining the W Hotel and Aloft, an Starwood properties located downtown.

The luxury, 323-room, hotel will take up the top ten floors of One Main Place.  Renovated retail, officeand meeting space will occupy the floors below. Towering 33 floors above Main Street, One Main Place dates back to 1968, but Downtown Dallas, Inc. says the property has experienced low occupancy in recent years. Belinda Ross worked at One Main Place eleven years ago. “It was dark, dingy.  she said. “So I think it would be good to have just kind of an uplift.” Many properties on Main Street are currently experiencing facelifts. The hotel is slated to open in December, and renovations are already underway.

What makes this significant, Mayor Mike Rawlings says, is the scale of the One Main Place endeavor.“Dallas has grown in different directions and is coming back home. What is happening downtown is remarkable.  This is proof that we are beyond the tipping point downtown,” Mayor Rawlings said during a press conference and tour of the space.

Ten hotels are in the works right now, according to Downtown Dallas, Inc.  City leaders are holding up the new project at One Main Place as an example of what can be done.
Mayor Rawlings explained, “When we’re pitching out the College Football Championship, when we’re pitching out the NCAA Final Fours, when we’re pitching the one we didn’t get – the Republican National Convention – hotels like this make a difference.”
 
[Jennifer Lindgren]