Latest look at Omni Fort Worth’s new hotel tower, part of $217M expansion
Plans for the $217 million expansion and update of the Omni Fort Worth Hotel in downtown are moving forward.
A conceptual footprint and parking garage will be reviewed Thursday by the city’s Downtown Design Review Board. A new rendering shows what the additional tower could look like with its 400 new hotel rooms and meeting space, which will extend south from the existing building at 1300 Houston St. A new parking garage would go on an existing surface lot across Throckmorton Street.
The construction work has an estimated valuation of $206 million, according to documents filed with the city. Developers propose the addition will span 342,000 square feet.
Back in April, Bob Rowling, founder of Omni Hotels’ holding company TRT Holdings, said construction could begin in spring 2024 and take about two years.
The expansion will take up a city block that’s currently the site of a Tarrant Community College administrative building at the corner of Houston Street and West Lancaster Avenue. When the work is complete, including a refresh of the existing hotel, the Omni Fort Worth will have 1,008 rooms over two blocks across from the Fort Worth Convention Center along Houston Street.
The expansion of the Omni Fort Worth Hotel was sidelined during the COVID-19 pandemic but got back on track in August 2022 when developers presented revived plans to the Fort Worth City Council. Under the 2022 proposed agreement, the city of Fort Worth would contribute $53 million in incentives to the project.
The project originally had a $174 million price tag back in March 2020 before the pandemic forced a full reconsideration of the project.
The existing Omni tower is 33 stories and was built in 2009. It is unclear how many stories the new tower will have, but renderings show it would be similar in height to other Lancaster corridor buildings.
This story was originally published October 4, 2023 at 4:56 PM.
